A Horse Named Smith
by Ichabod Grue
Summary: A pair of horses from Victorian England, newly gifted with human intelligence, struggle to adapt to a new life in Equestria - a life without humans. Historical fiction featuring Applejack's and Pinkie Pie's great-grandfathers.
1. Chapter 1

**A Horse Named Smith**

**Chapter 1**

_Ponyville, Equestria. Anno Caelestiae 1001._

Granny Smith yawned as she slowly slid out of her nap into the Spring sunshine. She could hear Applejack talking to someone in the kitchen; it sounded like Pinkie Pie, and why did ... oh yes. Granny Smith smiled indulgently and wondered how much Pinkie knew. She wouldn't be surprised if the younger mare knew the whole story, come to think of it. Granny herself hadn't really thought about it in ages.

She could see that Big Macintosh was tending the seedlings in the west orchard. Running the old story through her aged mind, reminding herself of details she'd thought she'd forgotten, it occurred to her how much of his great-grandfather had come out in Big Macintosh. Not the colour, of course: Mister Smith had been a pale brown stallion, with a dark mane and tail until old age turned them white; and of course Big Macintosh cut his mane and tail differently. But in every other respect, Big Macintosh was the spitting image of old Mister Smith ... though not quite as big. Close, very close, but not quite as big...

Granny Smith closed her eyes and drifted back into sleep.

* * *

><p><em>Barchester, England. Anno Domini 1862.<em>

Adam Pye whistled as he brushed down the strawberry-blonde mane of his horse. "All right, Strawberry, that's your mane as smooth as silk. I'd show you a mirror if we kept that sort of thing in a stable, but I guess you couldn't care less, could you?" He patted the horse and grinned. He normally gave Strawberry a good brush down every morning, but he rarely lavished more attention than that on the horse's appearance. No, he only cared about absolute perfection on those days when he knew the saddle would be filled with the delectable form of pretty Miss Diana Conrad, who was fonder of horses than was strictly ladylike. She was only a poor clergyman's daughter—hence the reason she was coming to him rather than he going to her—but a clergyman was a gentleman, as Adam himself was not, and that made all the difference. On the other hand, how many young ladies were there in the county who shared his fondness for the great equine beasts? She pretended to still need the riding lessons, though Adam knew she could ride better than half the county if they let her sit astride her horse like a man; he wasn't sure if she kept coming back for him or for Strawberry, and he wasn't sure which would please him more.

Strawberry snorted gently and looked over at Adam, all his patient docility evident in his great brown eyes. Adam took a step back to inspect his handiwork and, satisfied, turned his attention to the sadlery.

He was just done fastening the bridle when he heard the paddock gate creak open. Glancing out, he was pleased to see Miss Conrad there, already in her riding habit. He was also a little surprised to see that she was leading another horse by the reins. Leaving Strawberry, Adam went out to meet his student.

"Miss Conrad, good morning. This is a surprise: you've brought your own horse this time." The new horse looked docile enough, though a little skittish.

"Good morning, Adam. Yes, this is Mister Smith. Although, I must tell you that there is some bad news as well. You see..." Miss Conrad paused and glanced back at the horse behind her. Then it all came out in a rush. "Adam, it was quite dreadful! Father and I were passing by the inn, and we saw this man beating his horse—Mr Smith here—quite cruelly! The poor thing was already foaming with sweat from having been ridden all the way from London, and ... I said right then and there that Father had to buy him off the other man. Father said that the man had every right to do what he wanted with his own horse and that in any case the average London cab-horse had worse treatment than that, but I insisted that we couldn't just let it be. The long and the short of it is that Father finally did agree to buy the horse for me, but he said that if he did it, he would not be able to afford any more riding lessons, and that it was my choice."

Adam felt his heart sink. "So, this is the end of the lessons, then?"

Miss Conrad nodded. Then she continued, thoughtfully"Well, Mister Smith is fully my responsibility. Father said so. And I will have to exercise him regularly. And we haven't got a lady's saddle..."

"You can borrow Strawberry's."

Miss Conrad smiled. "Thank you so very much. Father is concerned, too, that Mister Smith might not be a suitable steed for a lady..."

"I'll ride with you this first time and see that nothing happens. Or, if you would prefer, you can take Strawberry one last time while I put Mister Smith through his paces."

"That would suit me very well. Thank you."

They set out a few minutes later, Miss Conrad on Strawberry and Adam Pye on Mister Smith. Adam knew perfectly well that much of this was merely a pretext, and he dared to hope that Miss Conrad was just as anxious as he was to maintain their acquaintanceship. That did not stop him from conscientiously monitoring Mister Smith's behaviour. It was only a matter of time before Algernon Conrad purchased a lady's saddle for his daughter's horse; Miss Conrad would be taking Mister Smith out all over the county within five minutes of that event. Adam had to ensure that Mister Smith was as reliable as could be, and that any bad habits be known to his mistress.

Fortunately, Mister Smith seemed to respond well, and did not seem to be quite as skittish as Adam had first thought. It was probably just unease at new ownership, Adam thought, something that would fade in time. "We should ride over to your Uncle Hector's," Adam said. "If Mister Smith can ride through Hector Conrad's property without shying in alarm at anything, you should be able to ride him anywhere."

Indeed, Hector Conrad was regarded as something of an eccentric by the general population. Until his acquaintance with Miss Conrad, Adam had belonged to that subset who believed him to be a dangerous maniac. Hector Conrad was an inventor, his niece had explained, and completely harmless if one were only careful to avoid touching anything. Adam agreed but reluctantly. He had little interest in the what Hector Conrad called "technologically progress" and "scientific advancement" beyond the fact that the gadgets littering the property were worth any amount of curiosity. And of course, he was always careful to keep his distance.

The two arrived to find Hector Conrad working on a large machine that appeared to be a cross between a pipe organ and a cannon. Copious amounts of steam and smoke poured out from an immense boiler behind it, and Adam could smell ozone. To their credit, both Strawberry and Mister Smith, though clearly unnerved by all of this, managed to maintain their composure. Miss Conrad's young brother, Arthur, waved to them as they approached. "Diana! Mr Pye! You're just in time! Uncle Hector's just finished this thing that's going to make horses and carriages and maybe even trains and ships completely unnecessary!"

"I wouldn't say completely," said the older Conrad from the depths of the machine, "I daresay it will be many years before the Transporter can be fully universal. We'll need a far more efficient fuel source, for one thing, and..."

"Well, one day, one day! But you have to see this, it's the most incredible thing in the world!"

Adam dismounted and helped Miss Conrad down from Mister Smith. He held the reins of both horses while Miss Conrad went forward to give her brother and uncle a more proper greeting. "I'm sure it's quite incredible, Arthur," said Adam warily. The machine looked more like a weapon of mass destruction than anything else.

"We do need to test it on a live subject at some point," said Hector. Adam's grip tightened on the reins as the inventor's gaze fastened on the two horses. There was no way he was going to let Strawberry and Mister Smith be part of what was clearly a dangerous experiment in things that man was never meant to do.

It was Miss Conrad who gave voice to Adam's thoughts on the matter, however. "You are not using the horses. I mean it, Uncle Hector." She walked back to Mister Smith and placed an arm protectively around his neck.

"Of course," Hector Conrad looked a little disappointed. "Of course, I'd have to test it more."

"But it worked with the apples and the stuffed badger and the armchair," cried Arthur, with the sort of enthusiasm that came with a few too many sugar lumps, "you know it's perfectly safe. Look, I'll show you..."

Hector Conrad jerked up in alarm, a wrench in one hand and what was probably a vital part of the machine in the other. "Arthur! Don't touch..."

It was too late. The smell of ozone intensified, and something inside the machine exploded. The cannon-like front of the machine collapsed at Arthur Conrad's feet, and the boy was enveloped in a strange, blue glow. Miss Conrad screamed and made to push her brother out of the way. Instinctively, Adam let go of both horses and dove after her, catching her before she could be caught in whatever it was that had her brother in its grip. Mister Smith and Strawberry whinnied in panic, rearing up on their hind legs, and turned to bolt. At that instant, Arthur Conrad disappeared from sight, and a beam of unnatural blue light shot from the cannon mouth and hit both horses. There was another explosion, and then the horses were gone as well.

Miss Conrad fainted into Adam's arms, and Adam's only thought was to get her out of this dangerous place and away from her lunatic uncle as quickly as humanly possible.

_Hector Conrad was ruined by the events thus described, and died not long after. The transporter machine was dismantled and locked away in the basement. It was 150 years before a descendant of the Conrad family discovered Hector's old notes and reassembled the machine._

_Arthur Conrad was transported into a savage land where he was adopted by a tribe of barbarian warriors. By some mysterious quirk of transdimensional physics, he aged at only a tenth the normal rate while in that new land. He was, physically, only in his mid 20s when he was finally summoned back to Earth by the reassembled machine, though 150 years had passed in both worlds. He proceeded to use the 150 years' worth of fighting experience to righteously kick butt in the name of justice, as a costumed superhero. But that is another story, for another time._

_Diana Conrad did not, as might have been otherwise expected, marry Adam Pye, despite their mutual admiration. She married instead another gentleman friend who indulged her fondness for riding and matched her social class, and the two settled into a relatively happy married life. Adam Pye turned to drink after Diana Conrad's marriage, and spent the next three years in an alcoholic stupor. He did, fortunately, eventually extricate himself from the evils of the devil drink—as his future wife put it—and married the good woman who'd stood by him through those dark times. He returned to the business of caring for horses, and attained a certain measure of success and respectability over the course of his career. It is entirely possible that Adam and Diana might have been happier together than with the spouses they eventually married, but that is mere conjecture; it is, at least, safe to say that they were happy enough in their respective lives, and had no need for anyone's pity._

_Strawberry and Mister Smith, meanwhile, were never seen on Earth again..._

* * *

><p><em>The Great Whinnysconsin Woods, Equestria. Anno Caelestiae 906.<em>

Mister Smith's first thought as he regained consciousness was that the experience was not so terrible as he might have expected. His second thought was to marvel at the clarity of that first thought. Now that he thought about it—third thought—he didn't recall ever actively thinking about things before. Not like this, anyway.

He opened his eyes and struggled to his feet. He felt as unsteady on his legs as a newborn foal, though a few paces up and down soon eased the jelly out of his joints. He shook his head and looked around. Strawberry was visible, just beginning to stir, in the shadow of a spreading oak tree. He could see that they were in a forest glen of some sort, a good deal greener than the pastures of England. Mister Smith snorted to clear his nostrils and approached the other horse. "Strawberry?"

"Adam?"

Two pairs of equine eyes widened, and Mister Smith skittered nervously away while Strawberry scrambled to his feet. They could talk! Just like their masters, but where were the humans now? Mister Smith tapped his hoof on a rock and started counting. One, two, three, four, five, six—he'd never made it beyond four before, and how did he suddenly understand how that really worked and why it was useful? Or even how this could be a measure of intelligence?

Strawberry was on his feet now, stumbling slightly. The two horses approached each other cautiously.

"You can talk?"

"So can you."

"What did that machine do to us, and where is everyone? More precisely, where are we?"

Strawberry looked around the glen nervously. "We have to find Adam. He'll know what to do."

Mister Smith felt a sudden surge of resentment. The Conrads had been kind enough, certainly, and he had nothing to complain about in the treatment he had received from Strawberry's master, but most of his life had been spent in the "care" of people whose better natures stopped short at the paddock gates. He still associated humans with thoughtless cruelty. He therefore had little desire to return to them, especially now: with his newfound intelligence had come a sense of power and independence that he had never felt before, and it was exhilirating.

"I think we can make our way out of this on our own," he said, turning about and sniffing the air.

"But what if Adam is hurt? What about Miss Conrad? Miss Conrad's _your_ mistress, so where's your sense of loyalty?"

"She was my mistress for all of two days. I don't know if she's earned my loyalty."

Strawberry spluttered, flabbergasted. Newfound intelligence or no, Mister Smith's apparent lack of any feeling for their human masters was perhaps more alien to him than Hector Conrad's machine had been. Mister Smith, glancing back at Strawberry, sighed and said, "look, I'm sure I saw your Adam Pye pull Diana out of harm's way just before the light hit us. They're probably fine. And if they're fine, then they're probably not here. This doesn't smell like Barchester. It doesn't even smell like England."

"What about Arthur Conrad?"

Mister Smith hesitated. "I don't know."

"Then we'd better start looking for him." Strawberry trotted around the perimeter of the clearing, swishing at the bushes with his tail. "Arthur? Arthur! Are you out there?"

"Hello? Who's there?"

The two horses stopped. There was someone out there! It sounded like a woman, but it wasn't Miss Conrad or any of the other ladies either horse knew. Strawberry called out again, "we're lost! Can you help us?"

Mister Smith moved to the centre of the clearing, and Strawberry joined him. A moment later, the bushes rustled and parted, and a mare cautiously stepped into view. She was quite a bit smaller than either Strawberry or Mister Smith was used to—Mister Smith thought that she might more properly be called a pony than a horse—and she was a rather improbable shade of green; but what really caught their attention was the horn that graced her forehead.

Mister Smith had only ever seen unicorns as part of the British coat of arms, and Strawberry had only ever heard of unicorns as mythical creatures described by some of his master's students. In either case, the two horses recognised—or thought they recognised—that they were in the presence of equine royalty. They both dropped to their knees and bowed their heads, and waited to be addressed by their social superior, as they thought proper.

Malachite Dream, who was the daughter of a woodcutter and whose closest connection to royalty was a pet dog named Rex, took a step back in surprise. Two of the largest ponies she had ever seen, kneeling to her? Well, they must be really be lost, and more grateful than anything to be found. She was about to say something about the nearest town, when something about these ponies caught her eye; or rather, something that should have, didn't.

"Where are your cutie marks?" she blurted out, and immediately blushed at her own rudeness.

The strawberry-blonde one looked up, puzzled, and it was his dark-maned companion who spoke. "Beg pardon?"

Goodness, did they not even know what a cutie mark was? Exactly how lost were these ponies?

"I'll explain later. Now, please get up. You're making me nervous. My name is Malachite Dream, and I'm from Haymarket, just a short distance that way." She pointed with her hoof, and the two large ponies looked with interest not in the direction in which she was pointing, but at her extended foreleg. She quickly brought her hoof down again and cleared her throat. "So, what are your names?"

"I'm Mister Smith," said the dark-maned pony, bobbing his head respectfully. How strangely formal, Malachite thought.

"Pleased to meet you, Mr Smith." She turned to the strawberry-blonde pony. "And you are Mr...?"

"Pye. Strawberry ... Pye." His companion shot him a strange look, but Mr Pie only shrugged; Mr Smith seemed even more surprised at this, but said nothing.

"I'm pleased to meet you too, Mr Pie," said Malachite politely. "If you'll follow me, we should be able to get back to town in time for dinner."


	2. Chapter 2

**A Horse Named Smith**

**Chapter 2**

_Enroute to Haymarket, Equestria. Anno Caelestiae 906_

"'Pye'?" whispered Mister Smith, leaning over to his companion, "Seriously?"

"What was I supposed to tell her? She wanted a last name, and I don't have one. Anyway, Adam Pye was my master so I guess I'm part of his family, and that makes me a Pye, don't you think?"

"So I guess my last name is Conrad. Mr Mister Smith Conrad. Yes, that just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? Strawberry, I've had enough masters in the past that I don't know whose name I ought to take."

"What's wrong with Smith? Miss Dream clearly thinks it's your last name, and it's a perfectly good one, at that. You could be ... Mr Adam Smith."

Something stirred in Mister Smith's memory. He thought he'd heard that name in a discussion once, between his last master but one and some London lawyer. "I'm not calling myself Adam Smith."

They'd dropped a few paces behind Malachite Dream on the way to Haymarket. If Malachite Dream had looked behind her, she might have observed, aside from the above exchange, her two new companions behaving rather oddly. In the simple act of pointing out the direction to Haymarket, she had shown them that she was capable of movements which neither horse had ever dreamt of doing, and led them to wonder of what they themselves were now capable. Strawberry reared up on his hind legs and attempted a few forward steps before dropping again to all fours; Mister Smith paused to explore the full articulation of his shoulder joints, including the act of shrugging which Strawberry had instinctively performed earlier. There was no question about it: in addition to the ability to recognise and notice this behaviour as curious and unusual and significant to themselves, they had gained a measure of fine dexterity that was almost human.

"We're there," called Malachite Dream from the edge of the forest, stopping the whispered conversation in its tracks. Mister Smith and Strawberry trotted up and looked out at the town, where ponies of every colour, tint and hue wandered the streets. Several sported unicorn horns, and Mister Smith wondered if perhaps they were a little hasty in assuming that Miss Dream might be royalty. She'd have mentioned her title if she were, now that he considered it. Meanwhile, there were also ponies with wings—he heard Strawberry mutter "pegasus!" while tracking the flight of one through the clouds, and made a note to question him about it later. There were no humans in evidence, anywhere at all. The ponies, however, could be seen shopping, doing chores, cooking and cleaning and otherwise behaving in ways that both Mister Smith and Strawberry considered more human than equine.

"Uh ... if you'll excuse us a moment, Miss Dream?" Mister Smith took a few steps back and pulled Strawberry over. "Strawberry, do you see what I see?"

"All the horses are humans in this place. Or all the humans are horses."

"I don't know how much human behaviour you saw with Mr Pye, but all I ever saw was the streets outside their houses. I have no idea what humans do when they're inside their houses, but I'm willing to bet these horses probably do the same, and they'll be expecting us to do the same also. We're going to look like a pair of blithering idiots if we're not careful."

"There must be humans somewhere," said Strawberry hopefully. "Miss Dream never commented on our saddles, did you notice? And some of these horses are wearing saddles, too. Where there's a saddle, there's bound to be a rider."

"I don't see a single bridle amongst them, though. What use is a saddle without a bridle?"

"Maybe we should take ours off, too."

Mister Smith glanced over to where Malachite Dream and her friend were waiting patiently, gave them an apologetic grin, and began helping his friend—they'd only just met a few hours ago, but necessity made them friends—out of his bridle.

Further down the road, Malachite Dream watched the two strange ponies struggle with their bridles. Her friend, Primrose Path, also watched, with great interest.

"I wonder if I should help them out," Malachite said. "I remember thinking that the buckles on their bridles looked a little too fine to be handled without unicorn magic, and I wondered why a pair of giant earth ponies would be wearing such a thing."

"Perhaps they have a unicorn friend help them out. Do they? A unicorn wife, perhaps? Oh, you don't suppose they might be married, do you?"

"Primrose?" Malachite turned to her friend and frowned. "Primrose, you don't know anything about these ponies."

"Then introduce me." Primrose had always admired larger stallions—the taller the better—and Malachite realised that, as far as Primrose Path was concerned, the appearance of Messieurs Smith and Pie meant that Hearth's Warming had come early.

"We'd ... better wait for them to be finished." Malachite glanced doubtfully at Primrose, who shuffled her hooves impatiently.

"Will they be staying long, do you know?" asked Primrose. "Or are they just passing through? If they're staying, I know Balderdash wants an extra hoof or two on the rock farm ... it's hard work, but these stallions look so strong ... oh, they'll want room and board while they're here, won't they, even if they're not staying long..."

"We'll take them to the stable as soon as they're ready." Up at the treeline, a bridle strap snapped and both ponies went tumbling head over hooves, landing in a comical sprawl on either side of the path.

Primrose stifled a giggle. "I like them. They're funny."

* * *

><p><em>Haymarket, Equestria. Anno Caelestiae 906<em>

Dinner, with Miss Dream and Miss Path, had been an experience. For one thing: apples. Sweet, lovely apples, practically glowing with delicious goodness. Strawberry had had apples often enough, as the horse of a rural riding master, but Mister Smith had had the joy of a whole apple to himself perhaps three times in the course of his life. Both horses understood apples to be something of a treat, and here they were, a core component of a "simple" meal. They were about to dive into the apples with gusto when they saw the glow form around one of Malachite Dream's apples. It matched the glow around her horn: it was evident that she was doing this somehow, levitating the apple into the air and taking bites out of it.

Was that how things were done here? And if they could also talk, and wave their forelegs about as though they were human arms... Mister Smith closed his mouth, straightened up, and willed his meal to rise into the air.

Nothing happened.

He stared harder, ears flattening back against his skull, the whites of his eyes beginning to show. Beside him, he could hear Strawberry mutter, "up up up curse you up now". And still nothing happened.

Both Miss Dream and Miss Path were staring at them now with quizzical expressions. "Is everything all right?" said Miss Path, "the apples don't bite back, you know."

Miss Path had her apple gripped somehow in one forehoof, and was manually raising it to her mouth for each bite. Mister Smith had been so anxious to follow Miss Dream's lead that he had forgotten to observe Miss Path—a foolish error, now he thought about it, as Miss Path, unlike Miss Dream, was a relatively normal horse, sans wings and sans horn, and therefore far more likely to behave in the manner required of similarly normal horses such as Strawberry and himself.

"We're, uh, just saying grace," said Strawberry quickly. Mister Smith was unfamiliar with the concept of grace before meals, but the mares seemed to accept the explanation. Mister Smith clumsily tried to pick up an apple in one hoof, then decided that it would be easier to grip it between two; carefully, carefully, he raised it to his mouth, and, unwilling to repeat this process more than he had to, closed his lips over the whole apple.

Oh, it was delicious. Mister Smith closed his eyes and let the pleasure overtake him, chewing slowly and carefully shuffling the seeds into one cheek as he crunched down into the sweet, juicy apple flesh. Finally, with a rat-tat-tat, he spat the seeds out into his plate and opened his eyes to grab hold of another apple. And now he was aware that all three of his dining companions were watching him.

"What?" Had he done something wrong?

"That's a neat trick," said Miss Dream. "I take it you don't much like apple seeds."

"I find them a little bitter, myself," said Miss Path, "but my mother always told me it was a waste to not eat the core. I'd love to be able to do what you did."

Mister Smith shrugged and pushed the seeds to the side of his plate with one hoof. "It just seemed like the thing to do."

"I know some ponies who travel around the further borders of Equestria collecting seeds and planting them," said Miss Path. "Being able to save the seeds like that—without the bother of cutting them out first—could be a useful skill."

"I'll keep that in mind," said Mister Smith thoughtfully.

He'd been the one to bring up the difficulty of payment earlier, explaining that neither he nor Strawberry had any money. Fortunately, the owner of the so-called "stable" had been willing to cover their room and board for one night, on the understanding that they would find gainful employment the next day. At the moment, any suggestion as to appropriate avenues of employment would be cause for consideration, and though Mister Smith had no intention as yet of moving out into the "further borders of Equestria", wherever that might be, it was perhaps useful to know that such a job existed.

The two stallions opted to retire for the night immediately after dinner, much to the apparent disappointment of Miss Path; and although the company of the two mares was quite pleasant, it seemed imperative that Mister Smith and Strawberry take the time to discuss their current predicament in private.

For one thing, this stable was nothing like any stable either had ever slept in. It was in fact an inn, with rooms on an upper floor, and stairs. Neither horse felt comfortable climbing those stairs, or being shut up in an upstairs room, though they tried not to show it. Mister Smith couldn't help but feel that it was only a matter of time before the wooden planks beneath them gave way, like a flooded bridge, and sent them plummeting into the dining room below.

Once they finally got their saddles off, Strawberry trotted over to one of the beds. "I think they expect us to sleep in this thing," he said, tapping the wooden structure with his forehoof. "That's just not natural."

"No more natural than Miss Dream's table manners," grunted Mister Smith as he twisted his legs around to examine his horseshoes. "I'm going to need new horseshoes, by the way. Miss Path said her brother was a farrier, didn't she? As soon as I earn the, uh, bits for it, I'm getting myself shod, assuming I don't throw one of these slivers that used to be horseshoes first."

"I can lend you a few bits once I have some. Adam just had me reshod last week; I won't be needing new shoes for a while."

"Thanks, Strawberry."

Strawberry paced over to the other side of the bed and cocked his head at it. He reached out and gripped the corner of the blanket with his mouth and gave it a quick tug. By a stroke of good fortune, the blanket whipped around and settled smoothly over his back. Gingerly, he set one hoof, then another, on the soft mattress, and leaned his weight into it; and when the bed failed to collapse only then did he dare to bring his hind legs up onto the bed as well. He stood there for a minute, his legs splayed and locked in position, the blanket draped over his back, his ears laid back, and said, "Mister Smith, I don't think I can lie down from here."

"Try kneeling down first."

"My forehooves are too far apart for that."

"So bring them in together."

"I ..." Strawberry slowly raised his right forehoof. Predictably, his left forehoof began to press deeper into the mattress, and his weight shifted to one side. Strawberry dropped his right forehoof back down onto the mattress in alarm. "I can't do it!"

Mister Smith put aside his inspection of his shoes and eyed the other bed. "It can't possibly be that difficult, can it? Maybe this is something that needs to be done quickly." He backed up as far as he could from the bed, snorted and pawed the floor, then charged forward and leapt into the bed. He landed on the mattress hoof-first, bounced off, and landed again ... on the floor by the bed this time, upside-down with all four legs waving in the air. In spite of himself, Strawberry began to laugh. Irritated and embarrassed, Mister Smith scrambled to get up, and swatted at Strawberry's outstretched legs. Strawberry's laugh turned into a panicked whinny as both legs on one side were swept out from under him. He lost his balance and tumbled off the bed, fortunately landing on top of his friend. The blanket, momentarily thrown off his back, floated back down and settled over both horses.

Someone rapped on the door. "Everything all right in there?"

"We're fine. Don't come in."

They waited until the clip-clop of hoofbeats receded into the distance before carefully disentangling themselves. Mister Smith glared at his bed, then gripped a corner of his mattress with his teeth and pulled it off the bedframe. It was a good deal easier climbing onto it once it was on the floor, and Strawberry hastened to do the same. "We'll have to make sure to put them back up tomorrow morning," Strawberry said.

Mister Smith nodded. This bed mattress thing was much more comfortable than anything he'd ever experienced. "I'd been meaning to ask you, Strawberry, about the winged horses. I thought I heard you call them something?"

"Pegasus." Strawberry sat up on his haunches and looked off into the distance. "The winged stallion, child of the hideous monster Medusa. I remember one of Adam's students talking about him. There was also something about another monster, Chimaera. I think Pegasus fought and defeated Chimaera, or else his master did. That part wasn't entirely clear to me."

"So these might be the descendants of Pegasus?"

Strawberry didn't answer. "Mister Smith?" he said at last, his voice very quiet, "do you think we're dead?"

"What? Don't be ridiculous. I'm here; you're here. Do we look dead?"

"I was thinking. The winged horses ... they could be angels. Perhaps this whole place is Paradise ... Heaven for horses, if you will."

Mister Smith shook his head. Unlike Strawberry, he had never been exposed to any talk of the afterlife, and Strawberry's comments meant nothing to him. He was aware, now, that death was that specific thing from which his sense of self-preservation preserved him: it was a thing to be avoided at all costs. To discuss it at all seemed unnecessarily morbid. Although ... if the evening's dinner of apples (apples!) were any indication, there could be a point to Strawberry's suggestion that they had just now passed on into some sort of eternal reward.

"What do you think of our chances of getting home?" he asked, hoping to move Strawberry on to less uncomfortable topics.

"If we're dead? No chance. Otherwise ... well ... no, I don't think we could find a way, not on our own power. If only we knew where the humans here live."

Mister Smith rolled his eyes. "Well, I for one am all for making a new life here. The other horses ... ah, the ponies, rather. They refer to themselves as ponies, you notice?"

"They are rather on the small side, for horses."

"Well, they seem like good sorts, is what I'm saying. And if they call themselves ponies, we should probably get used to calling ourselves ponies as well."

"It wouldn't be the first time, for me," muttered Strawberry, frowning. As a "horse for riding practice", Strawberry was a little on the small side for a horse, especially in comparison to the giant draught-horses employed by the neighbouring farmers, and he'd been called a pony on more than one occasion. It had seemed like an insult, now he thought about it, though at the time he hadn't understood enough to know what it meant.

"Another thing we should do," said Mister Smith, "is learn to read. That's one skill that apparently did not simply appear along with, well, everything else. I do remember a few words, though. 'Public house', 'tavern', 'town hall'..."

"'Cathedral', 'churchyard', 'beware of dog'..."

"'Whitechapel', 'Covent Garden', 'post no bills'..."

"'Private property', 'trespassers will be prosecuted'..."

"'Fleet Street', 'meat pies', 'barber'..."

"'Ullathorne', 'Plumstead', 'Greshamsbury'..."

Both horses—ponies—recognised the letters for "red lion", apparently the single most common public house name in England, as well as "blacksmith", "farrier" and "sadler". Strawberry said, "we should write these down. There's definitely a pattern between the sounds and the letters, and it would be easier to see what it is if we had it written down somewhere. Even if a lot of what we recognise are place names that we're never going to see again."

"We must see if we can get something to write on and something to write with, in the morning."

It had occurred to neither Strawberry nor Mister Smith that there might be any difference in the written languages of Equestria and England, and quite fortunately for them, with the exception of certain inverted letters, the two languages were in fact identical.

"We're going to have to stick together now," said Mister Smith. "You clearly know a lot of things that I don't, and I'm sure there are things I could bring to the table as well."

Strawberry admitted that the question of money had not occurred to him, so seldom was he ever privy to Adam Pye's financial negotiations; whereas Mister Smith, witness to several episodes of haggling over his own price, had a better understanding of money and its uses.

Away from their human masters, their natural instinct to form herds was reasserting itself, and both of them felt an earnest desire to fit into this new community in which they had found themselves. It seemed imperative, now, that no-one learn that they had not always been as intelligent as they were now, or that they were lacking in the knowledge of various things which the general population here took for granted. Certain things—the absence of a "cutie mark", for one, whatever that was—could not be helped; but for the rest, they would have to observe with care, learn what they needed, and remake themselves in this new image. At all costs, they would have to avoid making laughing stocks of themselves.

Contemplating these things, Strawberry and Mister Smith drifted off to sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

**A Horse Named Smith**

**Chapter 3**

_Haymarket, Equestria. Anno Caelestiae 906_

Horses in general require about two and a half hours of proper sleep, lying down, though they supplement this with light naps, in a standing position if necessary, throughout the day. It was not quite daybreak when Mister Smith and Strawberry awoke, but even so, it was apparent to them that they'd been asleep for far longer than either of them were used to. It seemed uncommonly luxurious, even decadent. Strawberry wondered if it were an effect of lying on such comfortable mattresses, and Mister Smith remarked that it was entirely possible, and, furthermore, that he was very much in favour of it.

"We've got to learn to live like humans now," said Mister Smith as he manhandled his mattress back onto its bedframe. "I guess humans sleep on beds, and even if we didn't quite manage it last night, we came pretty close."

"You'd think such a thing would be simple enough."

They decided against putting on their saddles and bridles: in the first place, the task of redoing the straps and buckles was far more daunting than the task of undoing them; and in the second, Mister Smith had been so glad to be rid of his bridle that he had thrown it into the underbrush as soon as it was off, and he had no intention of ever retrieving it. In fact, Mister Smith felt more than merely glad: it was, he was sure, the beginning of a new life. He was his own master. Strawberry might worry about the lack of humans, but, as they left their room, Mister Smith felt on top of the world.

And then they came to the stairs.

They hadn't thought too much about it, coming up. Trying to go down was another matter. Here was a series of narrow ledges, each ledge barely wide enough to accommodate a pair of hooves, and certainly not wide enough for a full-grown horse to stand on—not if the intention was to descend said series of ledges. They wouldn't get two steps down before the imbalance (their hindquarters being two steps up from their front legs) sent them tumbling the rest of the way down.

Strawberry cleared his throat. "Mister Smith, is this something you've ever done before?"

Mister Smith shook his head. "We're going to have to do this somehow. We can't stand up here forever."

"It's a good thing everyone else still seems to be asleep."

"All right. Let's do this." Mister Smith set his right forehoof on the first step down, then inched his back hooves forward, then carefully placed his left forehoof on the next step down. "Hold on to my tail, Strawberry, keep me from falling. When I get down, I'll hold you up from below." Strawberry nodded and took a firm hold of Mister Smith's tail. With his friend acting as an anchor, Mister Smith proceeded carefully onwards, one hoof at a time.

He was halfway down when a door opened behind them and a loud voice said, "what in Equestria are you two playing at?"

Strawberry gasped in shock, and Mister Smith's tail whipped free of his grip. Without Strawberry to hold him back, Mister Smith, as he had feared, went clattering down the rest of the way, not quite tripping but not exactly graceful either, finally landing in a crumpled heap against the far wall. The pony who had interrupted them trotted over to the top of the stairs. "You okay down there?"

"I'm fine," said Mister Smith. "I ... I seem to have thrown a shoe."

"Oh, bad luck." The other pony trotted down the stairs as if they were nothing—as if he had been trotting up and down these things all his life, as he no doubt had. "You'll want to see Happy Trails about that. My goodness, is this the shoe you meant? I could use this to peel apples! You should have been to a blacksmith or a farrier ages ago."

"I know, I know. It's a little difficult to explain."

Meanwhile, Strawberry paced agitatedly at the top of the stairs. He had no doubt that he would fare worse than Mister Smith had, were he to attempt the stairs. He needed someone to either hold him back or hold him up, to steady him, or else he needed something to hold. He stopped. Something to hold? Rearing up, he placed his forehooves on the bannister, then carefully placed one back hoof on the first step down. Holding himself almost vertical with the bannister kept his centre of gravity almost exactly above his hindquarters, and he could easily sense that the potential for overbalancing was much less. In addition, the bannister acted as an anchor, steadying him on the stair. He slid his forehooves a little further down, and took another step.

Below, Mister Smith and the other stable guest watched as Strawberry descended. Mister Smith had to resist the urge to applaud when his friend reached the bottom of the stairs: no-one needed to know that what Strawberry had just accomplished was, for them, a marvelous feat. All the same, it was clear that the other pony thought them more than a little odd, and it was a relief when he excused himself to return to his room.

Strawberry let out a sigh of relief. He was sweating already from the stress of his descent. Meanwhile, Mister Smith examined his thrown shoe ruefully. "Well, Strawberry. The idea was that we should go looking for work this morning, but I don't see myself being much use with only three shoes on. I'll have to go to the farrier's and beg for credit."

"Credit?"

"I think it's a promise to pay later. One of my old masters did it all the time, until he lost track of whom he had to pay, and my next master took me as payment instead."

"Well, we certainly don't want that to happen. Look, you go ahead to the farrier and see what he says. He's Miss Path's brother, isn't he? Perhaps she'll put in a good word for you. I'll go see if I can get a job. Miss Path mentioned a farm that might be wanting help, so I'll start there."

* * *

><p><em>Cobblestone Rock Farm, Equestria, Anno Caelestiae 906<em>

Barsetshire county, England, is fairly rural, and Strawberry was familiar with many different sorts of farms, from dairy to orchard and from prosperous to somewhat less so. But he had never heard of a rock farm. Had he been a human, with a human's education, he might have found the concept of a rock farm more of a curiosity, but Strawberry was only too well aware that he had never been formally taught anything beyond how to carry a human being about on his back. There was far too much in the world that he did not know: for all he knew, the stones of Barchester Cathedral might been grown in a greenhouse. And so it was with relative ease that he accepted the very existance of Cobblestone Rock Farm.

Cobblestone Farm was one of the largest rock farms in Equestria. It owed its prosperity to its proximity to Manehattan, that booming metropolis which was just now beginning to discover the joys of the skyscraper. Every day, a shipment of rubble would come in from some demolished low-rise or other, and an even larger shipment of mature stone blocks would be shipped back to construct another high-rise. There was always rubble to be broken down into gravel, gravel "seeds" to be planted, mature rocks to be harvested and cut into shape... Cobblestone, the old earth pony who owned the farm, certainly couldn't handle it all on his own, especially at his age; and so he relied on his trusty foreman, Balderdash, to deal with the day-to-day management.

One might be forgiven for thinking that the farm belonged to Balderdash, because he certainly walked as though it did.

Balderdash was used to being one of the biggest and strongest ponies in Haymarket. His gut reaction, when faced with the approach of the somewhat larger Strawberry, was to feel threatened. He really didn't much like ponies who were bigger, and probably stronger, than himself; but to show any sign of this was to admit weakness—anathema!—and so Balderdash hid behind a gruff, surly attitude when the larger stranger quite politely asked if he was the pony in charge of the farm.

"Yeah? Why do you want to know?"

"Well, sir, I'm looking for a job, and it was suggested that you might be hiring. My name is Strawberry Pye. I'm quite willing to work as hard as you need, sir."

If anything, Strawberry's earnest expression annoyed Balderdash even more. Still, Balderdash's practical side admitted that the farm could use a pony with muscle, and this Strawberry Pie character might do the trick. Oh, and being in a position of power over the upstart would certainly help. "I might have something, gathering the limestone into the mason yard." One of the hardest jobs on the farm. "I can pay you ... ah ... eight bits a day."

"All right."

"Ah, wait. Where's your cutie mark?"

"I ... I'm sorry?"

"Your cutie mark, idiot. What happened to it?"

"I don't have one?"

At his age? Really? "Well! Without a cutie mark, there's no telling what you're really good at, is there? And I can't exactly assign you to the job that best suits your talents if I don't know what your talents are, can I?"

Strawberry's ears drooped. "I'll work twice as hard if I have to."

"I can't pay you the full eight bits a day ... six bits a day sounds about right. I'm doing you a favour here, remember that."

"Six bits a day sounds good to me sir!" The way the big lug's ears perked up, you wouldn't guess that he was being offered almost half a normal farmhoof's salary.

"Come on up to the office and I'll have you sign a contract."

Strawberry didn't say anything on the walk over, but Balderdash was quick to observe some hesitation on the other pony's part when faced with the legal document, short though it was.

"Where do I sign?"

"On the dotted line, bottom of each page. First one's for you to keep, second one is for our records."

Strawberry hesitated nervously, then picked up a quill in his mouth by the feathered end and carefully dipped the nib in the inkwell. It was obvious that he'd never lifted a quill in his life. Very carefully, he marked an X on the dotted line on each page, and replaced the quill.

"Very good, Mr Pie. Glad to have you on board." The oaf hadn't even bothered to check the blank space where his agreed-upon wage was to be filled in. Balderdash smiled. He was willing to bet that Strawberry Pie was an illiterate. "Just head on over to the limestone field, out that way, and I'll be with you shortly."

"Thank you! I've got another friend who's also in the same situation, if you've still got any work here that needs doing. Do you?"

"Eh. We'll see. Just do as you're told and get on to the limestone field now."

Strawberry nodded and set off at a brisk trot for the limestone field. Balderdash watched him leave, then picked up the quill and filled in the blank space on Strawberry's contracts"6 bits daily" on Strawberry's copy, "12 bits daily" on the office copy. When Cobblestone stopped by an hour afterwards, the first copy was long gone; and, showing the second copy to his boss, Balderdash explained that the new hire had seemed so well-suited to the job of moving rocks around that it was only fair to offer him two bits a day over the normal wage.

"Good job, Balderdash," said Cobblestone, counting out an extra twelve bits for the day's wages. "I knew I could count on you to treat my workers fairly."

"Always, sir. Always."

* * *

><p><em>Happy Horseshoes, Haymarket, Equestria. Anno Caelestiae 906<em>

Mister Smith didn't recognise the words over the farrier's shop, but he did recognise the usual accoutrements of such an establishment. The pony puttering around inside was clearly a male version of Primrose Path. They had the same colouring: pale peach coats, and rust-coloured manes with pink streaks. Mister Smith limped into the shop and dropped his old horseshoe onto the counter. "Hello," he said, "Mr Path, I presume?"

"Eh? No, the name is Trails. Happy Trails."

"Oh! I thought ... I mean..."

"You must be one of the new ponies in town that my sister was talking about."

"Ah, yes, I'm Mister Smith. Your sister ... Miss Path, was it...?"

"Primrose Path, yes."

Mister Smith had assumed that "Path" was Primrose Path's family name, but that seemed to not be the case. Thankfully, he was saved from further embarrassment—at least in that direction—when Happy Trails caught sight of the thrown horseshoe on the counter. "What the...? That's not a horseshoe, that's a razor blade! Are all your other shoes like that?"

"Yes, unfortunately."

"My friend, you are not a customer: you are a cry for help. Get over here, now."

"I haven't got any money. I was hoping that you could fix that one horseshoe on credit for now, and then, when I've earned the bits I need, I could come back and pay for this job and for a proper shoeing."

"Rubbish. I'm not having any pony leave my shop with shoes like this. That's not how the Streets do business."

Street! Their family name was Street! Mister Smith fastened on that information like a starving animal pouncing on food. "You're very kind, Mr Street."

The farrier gave him an odd look. "Call me Happy. Or Mr Trails, if you prefer."

"Sorry. I thought ... well, you said ... I thought your family name was Street."

Happy Trails nodded as he prodded the larger stallion into position and began prying off the other horseshoes. "That's right. There's me and my sister, Primrose Path; and then there's our older brother, Rocky Road. He just got married last year and moved to Manehattan. He and Lemonade—that's his wife—are expecting their first foal next month. I inherited this shop from our daddy, Boulevard."

"I see." So, they were all named along a theme. The family name itself didn't actually figure into their personal names. Mister Smith filed the information away under the heading of "things that we desperately need to know but can't really ask about". He'd have to find Strawberry as soon as he could to explain this to him. Hoping to glean more information from Happy Trails, Mister Smith said, "so, your brother is in, uh, Manehattan, you said? And you're going to be an uncle?"

"Mm-hm. There's been a bit of a kerfuffle over naming the foal, you know. Grandpa wants them to stick to being Streets, of course, but Lemonade's family is pretty important and they want them to be Juices. Personally, I think Rocky and Lemonade are going to cut loose altogether and name the foal something like Banana Split or Chocolate Malt. We'll see. You know, these hooves of yours are pretty large; I may have to have the shoes specially made, unless ... I've got some spares from when I last shoed Balderdash. You might be a close enough match..."

For the next several minutes, Happy Trails concentrated on fitting shoes on Mister Smith, while Mister Smith watched the farrier attentively. It was true that he was far better coordinated now than he'd ever been before, but even so, he didn't think he'd be able to match Happy Trails' management of hammer and nails and iron horseshoes, all without the benefit of fingers. Much of the time, Happy had something or other in his mouth, and was unable to provide Mister Smith with any further information about this world. Mister Smith began to wonder if perhaps he should confide in someone and simply ask what he needed to know; but, though he did not exactly distrust the ponies he'd met—Happy Trails, Primrose Path, Malachite Dream, the stablemaster, the unnamed stableguest of this morning—he did not quite feel comfortable talking about himself just yet.

"So, tell me a little about yourself," said Happy Trails as he finished on one hoof and moved on to the next. "Primrose says you're from way out of town."

Mister Smith coughed. "Uh. I'm from ... quite far away. I don't know what there is to tell, really..."

"Family? Any brothers or sisters? Don't mean to pry, but I've been kind of curious about how you're missing your cutie mark."

"We don't have those where we come from. Cutie marks, I mean." And he still had no idea what those things were, except that everyone could see that he hadn't got one. He twisted around to look at Happy Trails, who was diligently tapping away at a horseshoe nail with a hammer clamped between his teeth. Mister Smith's eyes narrowed in suspicion as he focussed on the image of three horseshoes decorating Happy Trails' flank. That image was the only real and obvious difference between the two stallions. Mister Smith didn't recall if he'd seen anyone here without some sort of ... brand? It was a brand, wasn't it? Mister Smith had heard of branding, but had never seen it done. It was a rural, country thing. Strawberry must know about branding.

They lapsed into silence, though Mister Smith could see that Happy Trails was just dying with curiosity. He'd be lucky to get away without being asked any more awkward questions. And he was: Happy Trails had just tossed his hammer aside and opened his mouth to say something when the door to the shop opened, and Primrose Path trotted in. She stopped when she saw Mister Smith and smiled brightly. "Mr Smith! Mr Pie said you might be here. How have you been?"

"Quite well, quite well indeed! You've seen Strawberry today, then?"

"Oh yes, down at the rock farm. He says there might be a job opening there for you, if you'll speak with Balderdash as soon as you can. Speaking of which, Happy, Balderdash has invited me out for dinner tonight, at _le Queue de Cheval_."

"_Le Queue de Cheval_!" Happy Trails whistled, impressed. "Where did Balderdash get that kind of money?"

"He said he'd been saving up for a while."

"Well, you're going to have to tell me if the food really is worth the bits. Now, Mr Smith..."

"Oh yes!" Mister Smith tapped each hoof on the floor in turn. "These feel marvelous! I promise you, I'll pay you back as soon as I can, which means I need to look into this job opening as soon as I can ... the rock farm, is it, Miss Path? Which way, can you show me?"

Happy Trails watched as his sister led the newcomer down the street in the direction of the rock farm. As soon as they turned the corner, he trotted out of the shop, locked the door behind him, and set off for Malachite Dream's at a gallop.

"Happy? What's the matter?"

"The new ponies you told me about. One of them—Mr Smith—just came by my shop for a shoeing."

"Yes?"

"What do you know about that pony, anyway? How is he a full-grown pony with no cutie mark? Know what I think? I'll tell you what I think. No pony gets to that age without getting a cutie mark. I think he's not missing a cutie mark at all. I think his cutie mark is an invisible pony."

"An invisible ... Happy Trails, what is that even supposed to look like?"

"Nothing! It's invisible, isn't it? And you know what ponies with cutie marks like that are good at? They're good at being spies! And you know what spies are very bad at? They're bad at talking about themselves! This Smith pony wouldn't say two sentences about himself—he completely ignored me when I asked about his family ... I bet his real name isn't Smith, either, I mean, what sort of name is Smith? The only normal-sounding name I can think of with 'Smith' in it is 'Granny Smith', and that's a filly's name. Goldsmith, Locksmith, Silversmith, those are all more like job titles than names." Happy Trails paused, but barely. "His real name is probably something like Anvil or Hammer or maybe even Horseshoe, if 'Smith' is actually his family name. You know he actually called me 'Mr Street'? How weird is that? If 'Smith' is his family name, then it stands to reason that whoever's the head of his family must be good at smithing ... or at tinkering with machines ... Malachite, who's the best tinkerer in Haymarket?"

"Primrose."

"Right. And what sort of stallion always manages to charm her off her hooves?"

"Um. Tall, dark and mysterious?"

"Just like Mr Smith. Is his friend the same?"

Malachite nodded slowly. "Except for the blonde mane ... but his coat is much darker."

"Mr Smith seemed quite interested when I mentioned about Rocky Road moving to Manehattan ... there are a lot of inventor ponies in Manehattan, aren't there? And the rock farm sends rocks to Manehattan everyday: it would be really easy to sneak messages back and forth, if you were working at the rock farm ... some pony in Manehattan must be getting really interested in Primrose's work..."

"You don't think...?"

"I do think! Malachite, these ponies must be stopped!"


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's note:**

First of all, thanks to everyone who has commented thus far. Thank you for your encouragement. It means a lot to me.

A couple of reviewers have asked if the Mane Six will make an appearance, or if the characters of this story will meet them. The bulk of this story takes place 95 years before the present time: Mister Smith is supposed to end up being Granny Smith's father. I suppose I could have him live long enough to witness Applejack's birth, but that is as close as I think I'm going to get to a meeting between my characters and the canonical cast. There will probably be the occasional flash-forward, though, so cameos are a possibility; I had an idea for a scene with Spike, though I'm not sure yet how to work up to it, and right now the plan is to begin chapter 5 with a flash-forward to the Canterlot Wedding episode.

Reviews and criticisms are always welcome. Thank you all again.

* * *

><p><strong>A Horse Named Smith<strong>

**Chapter 4**

_Manehattan, Equestria. Anno Caelestiae 897_

There was just so much to see. "Just you wait," Grandpa had said, yesterday evening, "they're finding ways of making buildings even taller. Twenty years from now, you'll be able to step off the rooftops of Manehattan and onto Cloudsdale." And Primrose believed it. Happy said that earth ponies and unicorns would never dream of living in buildings that tall—it would be murder climbing all those stairs every day, for one thing—but Grandpa had only chuckled and told them to ask their father to show them one of Delicious Oats"elevators", whatever they were.

They were at the annual Forge Hammer trade fair in Manehattan. Rocky Road had followed Daddy the last couple of years, but this year declared himself uninterested in whatever that "stinking hellhole of a city" had to offer; and so Primrose Path and Happy Trails accompanied their father instead. Happy's interests were similar to Daddy's; colt and stallion were busy looking at the various farrier and blacksmith stalls, chatting about new metal alloys, new developments in horseshoe nails, the concept of self-removable shoes... Primrose, less interested in that sort of thing, wandered off to look at the other stalls.

The biggest crowd was around a tall unicorn who was touting Razzle-Dazzle's Straw Stripper Supreme 700, a kind of haymaking machine. Just apply a bit of unicorn magic, and you could mow down a whole field of hay in minutes. This being a smithing trade show, the focus was more on how well such an invention would sell, and how it could be produced, and what sort of maintenance work needed to be done on it... Primrose watched for a while, thinking that, if anything, it would make it easier for unicorns to do earth pony work. But it occurred to her that earth ponies were somewhat more limited in what they could do; no-one could work agriculture like an earth pony, everyone knew that, but unicorn magic was just so much more versatile. Really, what you needed was something that enabled earth ponies to do unicorn work, rather than the other way around...

These thoughts still running through the little filly's head, she trotted down to the next stall, and stopped. The invention being presented there was, according to the placard, Songsmith's Sewing Machine. It was worked with a hoof treadle, and allowed even the most non-magical pony you could imagine to stitch and sew like the most gifted unicorn seamstress. Primrose peered at the sample dresses. Such fine, even stitching! An earth pony did this? Tattersall, the best earth pony seamstress in Haymarket, was good, very good, but even she couldn't compare!

"Would the young filly like to give the machine a whirl?"

Primrose looked up to the smiling eyes of Songsmith, the old unicorn inventor. "Oh, may I?" she asked eagerly. Songsmith nodded and helped her up onto the stage. Primrose took a seat on the bench and fitted one hoof on the treadle. The sewing machine needle began to move up and down. Under Songsmith's guidance, Primrose pushed the sample fabric through the machine, watching as the tiny, tiny stitches formed before her eyes.

That was where Happy found her half an hour later, proudly displaying her work. "Primrose, we've been looking all—oh, you have got to be kidding me."

"What?"

"Your flank, little sis. Stop showing off your souvenir hanky and take a look at yourself, why don't you?"

Primrose looked around, and gasped. "I've got my cutie mark!"

"And it's one of them new-fangled sewing machine things. I guess this means Daddy is going to have to get us one, huh?"

Most ponies might assume that Primrose's special talent was in sewing. Those closer to her thought it was in tinkering with newfangled inventions—Daddy always made sure to bring her to the trade fair after that, and always knew he could find her among the inventors' stalls. Only Primrose herself knew that it was a little more complicated than that: her interest was less about technological progress for its own sake, or interesting little gadgets; it was more about finding ways for the different pony races to cross into each other's so-called bailiwicks...

* * *

><p><em>Haymarket, Equestria. Anno Caelestiae 906<em>

Balderdash had made Mister Smith the same offer he'd made to Strawberry, but explained that since Mister Smith was putting in only half a day's work, he would get only half a day's pay: three bits. That seemed fair enough, and left them with nine bits total at the end of the work day. Then, for a piece of slate and a bit of chalk, they'd paid Balderdash one bit; food and lodging together swallowed up all the remaining eight bits, much to Mister Smith's disappointment. He'd been hoping to have at least a little bit left at the end of the day to put towards what he owed to Happy Trails. Still, as Strawberry said, tomorrow was another day, and they would have three bits more at the end of it than they had today, if they both put in a full day at the farm. Mister Smith supposed that that was true, but horseshoes were costly things and even then it would be a number of days before they would have enough to pay the farrier.

Neither of them wanted to sleep out in the fields, or graze for food, which would have cost them nothing. It seemed to them that the ponies here did not do that sort of thing, and therefore neither would they. They were uncomfortably aware that their fit with the town was far from seamless as it was, and any further "eccentricity" on their part would only aggravate the situation.

They spent the evening writing out the words they knew. It was slow going, especially since they were unused to writing anything in the first place. The first hour was spent just learning how to hold the chalk in their mouths and how to drag it across the slate with just the right amount of force, and in just the right distance, and in just the right direction. Strawberry proved to be far better at this than Mister Smith, by the end of the hour producing shapes that might almost have been written by human hands. Mister Smith would have been happy to let Strawberry do all the writing from then on, but he felt he needed all the practice he could get. And then there was the problem that, while they recognised various letters by sight, they had no idea what those letters were called—nor had they any idea of capitalisation, or punctuation, or the standard left-to-right direction of wordflow.

It was close to ten o'clock when Strawberry spat out the chalk and confessed himself utterly frustrated. "I want to do something else for a while."

"Fair enough. I'm frustrated too." Mister Smith kicked the slate under his bed. "Anyway, I've been meaning to ask you if you've seen anyone in this town without some sort of fancy picture on his flank. I'm fairly sure that those things are the 'cutie marks' I keep hearing about."

"I think I've seen a couple of foals without them. But they were very young. If you're thinking what I'm thinking..."

"Branding?"

Strawberry nodded. "I've been wondering how they got branded in all those colours, but they they're naturally all sorts of unusual colours anyway. Perhaps brands come out in colours over here.."

Mister Smith remembered the London docks, seeing humans with patterns and pictures marked on their bare skin. Humans must do it to themselves too, he thought, and theirs sometimes came out in colour. Perhaps it was a universal rule that the sapient species got colourful brands. "I've never seen branding done before. Do you know how it's done?"

"Well, first you heat up a bit of metal until it's red-hot..." Strawberry had seen cattle being branded on more than one occasion, and his description of the process filled Mister Smith with unease. The cattle of Strawberry's description seemed to take it well enough, but they were only dumb animals ... Mister Smith realised with a shock that, just two days ago, he and Strawberry might be classed as dumb animals too. They wouldn't have protested a branding because they wouldn't have known any better.

Strawberry finished the lecture with a note about military horses getting branded on their hooves. Mister Smith blinked and looked down at his hooves, with their gleaming new shoes. He wasn't sure if getting a red-hot poker stuck into his hooves was better or worse than having it stuck onto his flank. "Well," he said slowly, "I suppose if everybody here can stand it, I can too. We should get ourselves branded."

"How? I mean, do you know if we're supposed to find some sort of specialist to do this?"

Mister Smith shook his head. "I asked Miss Path where she got hers. She said she got it quite unexpectedly while visiting a trade fair in Manehattan. That doesn't sound like something with 'proper channels' to go through. And anyway, what are we going to say if there is one and we find him?" He picked up one of his old shoes, which Happy Trails had been quite happy to let him keep. "Personally, I'd like to get this over and done with as soon as possible, and as quietly as possible. We can use this horseshoe for its shape, but we obviously can't use the stable fireplace unless we want to get caught; and we're going to need tongs of some kind to hold it. Happily, I know where we might be able to get both fire and tongs, if you're willing to try going down those stairs one more time today."

"Practice makes perfect," said Strawberry, trotting to the door. "And I agree, the sooner the better. I'm tired of being stared at."

Mister Smith led Strawberry back to Happy Horseshoes. The shop was shut up for the night, but through the window they could see the glow of embers in the forge. Neither horse had thought of the possibility that the door would be locked, and it swung open when Mister Smith pushed it with his forehoof.

"Mr Trails? Are you in?"

Silence.

The two horses crept into the shop and made their way to the forge. A few pumps of the bellows got the fire back up and going. Mister Smith fetched a pair of tongs and laid it on the floor between them, along with his old horseshoe. "Strawberry? Are you ready?"

Strawberry gulped. "I guess so. It's just once in a lifetime, right?"

They stared at the tongs and horseshoe some more. Mister Smith said, "all right. Let's do me first. You've seen this done, so you know better than I what to do." He nudged the tongs over to his friend, turned, and settled down on the floor. Looking around, he watched as Strawberry clumsily picked up the horseshoe with the tongs and thrust it into the fire. Neither of them said anything as they waited for the horseshoe to glow with heat. Finally, Strawberry drew the red-hot metal out of the forge and gave Mister Smith a look that said "just say the word and we can forget all about this." Mister Smith took a deep breath, closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. "Do it, Strawberry."

He could feel the heat as the horseshoe slowly approached his bare flank.

"What are you two doing!"

Strawberry gasped. Mister Smith opened his eyes in time to see the horseshoe and tongs clatter against the far wall where they'd been thrown, a yellow glow just dissipating from around them. Both horses turned. Malachite Dream, pale and wide-eyed, stood in the shadow of an inner doorway, her horn glowing with faint yellow light. "Are you trying to mutilate yourselves?" she asked, her voice tight with horror.

"Um. We can explain."

"It's not ... uh ... I mean ... we thought..."

The horses exchanged worried glances. Malachite moved carefully along the wall towards the exit, keeping a good distance from them.

"You won't tell anyone, will you? Please?" Strawberry begged.

"We just wanted a brand, like everybody else," added Mister Smith.

Every-"body"? Malachite suppressed a shudder. It sounded like they thought of everypony as corpses. "What do you mean, a brand like every_pony_ else?" Two pairs of equine eyes flickered towards the brass lantern that was her cutie mark. Malachite, in her nervous, hyper-aware state, caught the glance and followed it. "Are you talking about cutie marks?" She gasped. "You are! You were trying to make your own cutie marks! You're insane!"

She was close enough to the door now to make a dash for it, but Mister Smith was quicker. He was between her and it in an instant, and Malachite skidded to avoid running straight into him.

"Let me go!"

"Please, you have to help us. If cutie marks aren't brands, then what are they?"

"Mister Smith, I think we'd better tell her everything."

* * *

><p><em>Canterlot, Equestria. Anno Equestriae 2<em>

"Clover, thou shalt of course handle the negotiations. I for one can tolerate the Chancellor and the Commander thus far and no farther; and I will not sully my hooves in parley with their underlings. I trow, if we would live in harmony from this time hence, 'twould be better for all concerned if all future diplomacy be placed in thy hooves and in the hooves of thine counterparts Smart Cookie and Pansy. The Chancellor in particular vexes me much. In simple conversation, she did once refer to our _signum acritatis_ as an 'acuity mark', which irreverence doth drive me almost to drink."

"Your Highness, we doth now enter unto a new era. 'Tis perhaps well that some modernisation come upon us, even to the adoption of the _lingua vulgaris_ for that which we have thus far designated only in the _lingua arcana_. The common pony would know in the instant by the name 'acuity' that the mark maketh reference to the sharpest wits of the pony..."

"Pah! And what pony would not already know that ere he hath reason? But let the masses speak as they may, thou shalt never do so in my presence! The _signum acritatis_ shall not be called otherwise. Why, if today we should accept this ... this abomination, this 'acuity mark', what next shall happen? 'Tis but the first step, this 'convenience of language', and next shall come the dropping of syllables. Will the noble _signum acritatis_ descend to become a ... a 'cute mark'? A 'tea mark'? A 'cue mark', perhaps, and then wilt thou make noise that the pony taketh his 'cue' from his _signum_? Neigh, never! Verily, I shall not allow it! Fetch unto me my couch; I doth perceive an impending onset of the vapours."

"As you wish, Your Highness. Forsooth, we have far larger fish to fry than these little matters of appellation..."

* * *

><p><em>Haymarket, Equestria. Anno Caelestiae 906<em>

Happy Trails watched as the two strange ponies left the inn. In truth, he only half-believed that they were spies from Manehattan; but he did believe that they were a potential threat and that they were well worth watching, whatever their actual purpose in coming to Haymarket. He'd convinced Malachite to keep watch over the house that he shared with his sister, while he took up position in a shadowy corner of the stable's common room. With Primrose out on a date with Balderdash, it would be the perfect opportunity for these ponies to make their move—if they were in fact targetting his sister's studio. And sure enough, the clock had just gone ten when they came creeping down the stairs, oh so very carefully; and there was definitely something furtive about the way they snuck out the stable door...

Happy contemplated running ahead to give Malachite a hoof, but figured that the unicorn could take care of herself. It might be more important to see if any evidence could be found in the room the two ponies shared. He'd ascertained earlier which room that was, and now he crept up the stairs and over to the door. The door creaked open at a touch—here, Happy experienced his strongest doubt as to whether they were indeed spies—and Happy quickly ducked inside.

Through the window, he could see the two tall shadows slinking along in the direction of his shop—and Primrose's adjoining studio. Just as he expected. He waited and watched. He could just see the glow as somepony fanned up the flames in his forge; why a pair of spies would do such a thing, he did not know, but Malachite would tell him all about it when he caught up with her later.

Now, what was in this room? It was quite bare: those two ponies hadn't turned up with much in the way of belongings. A pair of saddles had been tossed willy-nilly into one corner; a leather bridle hung from the post of one bed. One of the saddles was an odd, asymmetrical design, and if either of them had a secret compartment built in, he couldn't find it, not even after several minutes of poking and probing. He gave the bridle only a glance, but it was enough to see that the buckles seemed a little small for an earth pony—this, to Happy's suspicious mind, suggested an accomplice in the background.

There was a piece of chalk on the floor. That was unexpected.

Happy took another look around the room, then took a peek under the beds. Underneath one, he found a piece of slate. The chalk had been used to write on it"FARRIER ... STREET ... MEAT PIES".

Happy Trails dropped the slate and kicked it back under the bed. Farrier Street? That was him, of course: he remembered how Mr Smith had called him "Mr Street" earlier that day. But "meat pies"? Who in Equestria put meat in pies? Meat was a necessary evil that you fed to dogs and cats and you tried not to think too hard about where it came from. No pony made pies out of it, in case some silly foal mistook it for a proper apple pie and ate it. Only ponies ate pies. Ponies didn't eat meat. Pony digestion couldn't handle meat. He'd never heard of any pony even try...

No, that wasn't true. He'd heard about the Cult of Diomedes: ponies who ate ... other ponies. He'd always thought they were a fairy tale meant to frighten little foals into behaving.

Why would a pair of spies fan up the fire in that great oven-like forge? How long had he left Malachite alone in that house, and did she have the sense and stealth to stay hidden?

Sick with terror, Happy Trails dashed out of the room, leapt down the stairs, and galloped as fast as he could for home.


	5. Chapter 5

**Spoiler alert: **for A Canterlot Wedding, Part 1; but I'm sure everybody here will have already seen it, right...?

**A Horse Named Smith**

**Chapter 5**

_Haymarket, Equestria. Anno Caelestiae 906_

It was a lot to absorb all at once. There was a part of Malachite that said that you couldn't possibly believe the claims of a couple of ponies who'd been just about to voluntarily burn themselves on red-hot iron in a vain attempt to fake a cutie mark. Then there was the other part that said that no pony who was actually from Equestria could possibly not know what a cutie mark was, and their story certainly explained a lot of things.

Either way, it would be better if they went outside. First of all, Primrose might return at any minute; and second of all, being outside would give her a better chance of escape if they really were dangerous—which she was beginning to doubt. Mister Smith and Strawberry seemed quite happy to let her lead the way into Primrose's garden, in the corner between Primrose's studio and Happy's farrier shop. And not a moment too soon: Strawberry was just about to begin describing these "humans" when they all heard the clip-clop of approaching hooves, Primrose's light laughter and the deep rumble of Balderdash's voice.

"Primrose—" began Malachite, grateful for the company of non-Earth earth ponies.

"You promised, not a word," whispered Mister Smith, and the honest fear in his eyes was so palpable that, at that moment, the balance of Malachite's belief tipped firmly into the side marked "harmless aliens from another dimension".

She nodded and poked her head around the corner. "Primrose," she said, "you've been out late. I was just showing off your garden to Mr Smith and Mr Pie. I hope you don't mind."

Balderdash's eyes narrowed slightly. The presence of the two other stallions was clearly unwelcome to him, and, under the current circumstances, who could blame him?

Primrose looked surprised. "It's not the best time to be looking at gardens," she began, and if she had continued in that line, Malachite might have found herself in a tight spot trying to explain why she and two very large, very strange ponies were really hiding out in the garden at this time of night. Thankfully—or not, as it turned out—they were interrupted by the arrival of galloping hooves, and Happy Trails skidding to a halt before them.

"Happy? Are you all right?"

Happy looked around at the gathered ponies. "I'm fine," he said, taking a moment to catch his breath.

"Are you sure about that? You look a little flustered."

Happy ignored the question, drawing himself up to his full height. "I've got something to say." He pointed an accusatory hoof at Mister Smith and Strawberry. "They're evil!"

* * *

><p><em>Canterlot, Equestria. Anno Caelestiae 1001<em>

"I've got something to say." Twilight pointed an accusatory hoof at Princess Cadence. "She's evil!"

Applejack gaped. Oh Twilight, she thought, you did not just say that. But Twilight was on a roll, and all Applejack could do was stare as her friend ranted on. Ordinarily, Applejack would have stepped in, tried to calm Twilight down and maybe get some sort of a better handle on her side of the story, but ... if only Twilight hadn't started with quite those exact words.

Applejack always cringed at that part of the story when Granny Smith repeated it. It was the beginning of a bunch of things going south for Great-grandpappy, and even if Great-uncle Happy did apologise for it later, poor Great-grandpappy could not have had a good time of it. Princess Cadence had galloped off in tears—Granny Smith had said once that she'd never known Great-grandpappy to cry, and that she'd always thought he didn't really know how—and now Shining Armor was explaining, angrily, just what Twilight's suspicions amounted to. It was embarrassing, the more so because what he said made so much sense. Applejack's imagination went back to that other confrontation scene of almost a hundred years ago, in a garden in the middle of the night, and it was hard not to sympathise with the accused.

"...in fact, if I were you, I wouldn't show up to the wedding at all," Shining Armor concluded. He winced and rubbed his head as though it hurt, as it probably did, and stalked out of the room. Twilight was left sitting on the carpet, gobsmacked and guilty.

Applejack hazarded a glance at the others: Fluttershy was crouching with both forehooves over her mouth, Rarity looked a shade whiter than usual, Spike seemed to have forgotten that he was still holding the cushion for the rings, while Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie seemed struck dumb for once ... all of them evidently torn between their loyalty to Twilight and horror at what she had just done. Applejack frowned. Time to take the lead. "Come on, y'all. Let's go check on the princess."

The others followed her out. Outside, Fluttershy hesitated and looked back. "Poor Twilight. Maybe someone should go back and—"

"Poor Twilight nothin'!" snapped Applejack. "She brought this on herself, and if you're a real friend, there ain't no way you're gonna go back there and let her think it's all right, because it ain't! No pony gets the right to hurt others like that, and I ain't gonna stand by and let it happen even if that pony _is_ my best friend!"

"But ... her own brother ..."

"They'll get over it, same as with Apple Bloom and me over that Gabby Gums business, same as with Rarity and Sweetie Belle back at the Sisterhooves Social. Blood's blood, you can't get away from that. Let Twilight stew for a while and think about what she just did, and if she ain't apologised to Shining Armor and the princess by tonight, I'll march her right over and see that she does. Meantime, the princess needs a kind word now more than Twilight does."

"Someone should also put in a kind word for Twilight with Shining Armor," said Rarity gently.

"Yeah, some pony should go do that." Applejack continued down the hallway, mulling over Twilight's little freakout. "Evil" indeed! Where had Twilight come up with that? No pony was really "evil"—"bad", perhaps, but never "evil". Even Nightmare Moon had turned out to be only lonely Princess Luna underneath. Well, all right, maybe the Cult of Diomedes was evil, but no pony older than six really believed they existed, so they didn't count.

_As it turned out, Twilight Sparkle was quite correct in her suspicions, which just goes to show that historic precedent is not infallible. But that is another story, for another time._

* * *

><p><em>Haymarket, Equestria. Anno Caelestiae 906<em>

"...and why any pony is thinking of meat pies, I'd really like to know!" Happy Trails glared at Mister Smith and Strawberry, who didn't seem to know where to look. Malachite looked uncomfortable, and Primrose was wide-eyed in shock. Balderdash was looking from one pony to the other, his face unreadable.

"Happy Trails," Malachite said at last, "there's ... I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation..."

Happy Trails had been saving this bit for last"Are you or are you not with the Cult of Diomedes?" he demanded, stamping his hoof for emphasis.

"Who?" said Mister Smith, and Primrose began to protest that the Cult of Diomedes was only a fairy tale, and an obscure one at that; but Strawberry, seemingly in shock from Happy's accusations, began to speak in a soft, faraway voice"Diomedes of Thrace ... he had four mares: Podagros the fleet, Xanthos the fair, Lampon the bright and Deinos the terrible ... Diomedes kept them chained to a bronze manger because they were wild and uncontrollable, and they hungered for flesh and blood, which Diomedes fed to them by murdering his guests in their sleep..."

"You seem to know a lot about this obscure 'fairy tale'," said Happy Trails, taking a step back. Even Primrose had withdrawn a little. True, the Cult of Diomedes was not among the popular stories told to little foals—nothing like The Cinder Mare or Black Beauty or The Little Hippocamp—but even those few who'd heard it probably hadn't had the mares named. In Happy's opinion, Strawberry had just given himself away, and in a big way. Mister Smith nudged Strawberry, who shook himself and looked around with an expression of wonder, as if he'd only just woken up. "Primrose, get back inside," Happy said sternly. "And you two can go back wherever you came from. I don't—"

"Happy Trails." Balderdash stepped up, his large bulk interposing itself between the farrier and the two horses. "Happy, a word, if you please?"

They retreated to a corner of the garden.

"Happy," said Balderdash quietly, "I don't deny that these two strangers are probably dangerous villains, but are you sure you want to send them back into the Whinnysconsin Woods? You won't know where they are, if they go. No, don't argue. Think about it. As long as they're here, in town, you and any pony else can keep an eye on them. They can't do anything. If they're gone, you won't be able to see them, and they can strike whenever they like, and take whoever they want."

Happy, who'd had several arguments bursting to get out over the course of Balderdash's speech, found himself suddenly at a loss for words. Darn it, Balderdash was right. Balderdash smiled as Happy visibly deflated, and patted him on the shoulder. "I knew you'd see sense. Now, we're going to go back and let them know they can stay if they want, but maybe you want to spread the word around? As quickly as you can, so every pony knows to keep their distance, and keep their doors locked; but quietly, so we don't alert those two villains. Okay?"

Happy nodded slowly. "You'd better go look after your sister," Balderdash continued, with another encouraging smile. "I'll take care of things out here."

Happy nodded again, more vigorously, cast a suspicious glance at Mister Smith and Strawberry, and went to herd his sister indoors. Happy and Primrose could be heard arguing even as the door closed and locked behind them. Meanwhile, Balderdash ambled over to the others, a wide smile on his face. "There, took some careful explaining, but I don't think you've got anything to worry about anymore."

"Will we have to leave?" asked Strawberry quietly.

"Leave? Oh no, don't be silly. Happy Trails gets a little paranoid every so often, but it's nothing to worry about. You shouldn't take him too seriously."

"Thank you," said Mister Smith, bowing. "We owe you one."

"Ah, think nothing of it. I take care of my workers, see? Now, it's getting late and we've all got an early day tomorrow, so we'd best be getting back to our beds. I will see you bright and early tomorrow, of course?"

Both Mister Smith and Strawberry nodded eagerly. "Of course."

Balderdash turned to leave. But first... "Malachite? Shall I walk you home?"

"Oh! I just have a few things to discuss..."

"Malachite." Balderdash frowned and glanced towards the neighbouring houses. The implication was clear: a single mare and two strange stallions alone in the middle of the night? Ponies will talk.

"Go on, Miss Dream," said Strawberry, who understood the look perfectly and who came from a society where "people will talk" was the worst possible threat, "we can meet for supper tomorrow."

"All right then," said Malachite reluctantly. "We'll talk tomorrow." Balderdash guided her out of the garden, walking straight for her home.

* * *

><p><em>Cobblestone Rock Farm, Equestria. Anno Caelestiae 906<em>

The whispering started almost as soon as the day began. Mister Smith paid it no mind, but it gradually became apparent to him that the whispering stopped whenever he drew within earshot. As the morning wore on, he became aware as well that the other ponies were giving him a wide berth. Eventually, he found himself on the granite field, planting granite chip seeds with no-one but Strawberry for company. He guessed that Happy Trails had been spreading stories. It was unfortunate: the farrier had seemed friendly enough when they'd first met, and Mister Smith rather liked the fellow. Something somewhere had gone wrong, and he didn't know what. In the meantime, there was the more immediate problem of seeding the granite field with only Strawberry to help.

"There's no way we can do this whole field in time," said Strawberry. "Not if no-one else will help."

Mister Smith snorted. "Oh yes? Watch me." He threw the seed bag down on the ground and took a large mouthful of the granite chips in his mouth. With his right forehoof, he dug out a little hole, spat a granite chip into it, and pushed the earth back over the hole with his left hoof as he paced forward. Repeat. Repeat. Strawberry, unable to handle the chips with quite the same expertise, moved rather more slowly.

"How'd you know about this Diomedes business, anyway?" asked Mister Smith, as he trotted back to the seed bag for a second mouthful. "Same place you heard about Pegasus?"

Strawberry nodded. "Many of Adam's students were studying classics and they would talk about it. The mares of Diomedes were only wild and bloodthirsty because of Diomedes himself, I think. A human hero named Hercules defeated Diomedes and fed him to the mares, and after they'd eaten him up, they became, well, a lot less wild and bloodthirsty."

"That is a terrible story," said Mister Smith through a mouthful of granite chips. Dig, spit, cover. Repeat.

"I guess they must have a similar story here. Or it could be completely different except for the name. I'll have to ask Miss Dream about it tonight."

There was a loud throat-clearing at the top of the field. The two horses looked up and saw Balderdash frowning down at them. "Sorry," shouted Strawberry, "I'll get right back to work!"

Balderdash ignored him. Instead, he ambled down to Mister Smith and sniffed at the seed bag. "These are granite chips," he said.

"Yes...?"

"This here is the marble field. It's the only field really suitable for marble, and you were supposed to be planting marble. We're expecting a high demand for marble next year, and we can't afford to lose the field."

Mister Smith stared. He still had half a mouthful of granite chips lodged in one cheek, and these he spat back into the seed bag. "Are you saying we should go back and dig up all the chips we've put in this morning?"

"Unfortunately." Balderdash gave a sigh and looked up to where the sun stood, halfway up the sky. "That's half the morning gone here, and I reckon we'll lose the rest of the morning picking out the granite. You know I can't pay you for this. It wouldn't be fair."

Mister Smith sighed. Strawberry was already turned around and digging up the chips he'd planted. "I suppose you're right. If we're done quickly..."

"I'll pay you for the afternoon when you give us work we can actually use. Fair's fair. You'll find the marble chips in the marble storage shed. Try to get it right this time, please?"

Balderdash turned and ambled off towards the next field. Mister Smith watched him go. Resentment flickered in his heart and set his mind on edge. It was Balderdash who had given them the seed bags this morning, after all. Didn't that make it Balderdash's fault that they'd just lost a morning's work? But then, even if it was, Mister Smith supposed that he and Strawberry were after all only going to be useful to the farm for half the day. They couldn't be paid for more than that, could they? Mister Smith counted up the bits in his head. He and Strawberry together should have earned twelve bits for a full day's work; half of a day's work would pay six bits, and, as per yesterday's expenses, food and lodging was eight bits. They'd be two bits short tonight. It didn't occur to him to ask Malachite Dream for help, even if she and Primrose had helped to pay for dinner their first day here. That had been unavoidable. His pride had permitted him to take charity that one night only on the condition that he earn his way properly from the next morning forward, and, in spite of Happy Trails' offhanded offer of free horseshoes, Mister Smith was still determined to pay him in full. And besides, one didn't ask a lady to a meal and expect her to pay. Even the worst of his human masters had never done that. What were they going to do?

Balderdash had told them to get the marble chips themselves, from the marble storage shed. Well. Surely no-one would mind if he and Strawberry stayed the night in one of the storage sheds? It would only be for one night, and nobody needed to know...

* * *

><p><em>Canterlot, Equestria. Anno Caelestiae 999<em>

Fancypants nodded to the doorpony as he strolled through the club lobby. The tall double doors to the inner rooms opened just enough to let him in—legend said that the club doors had never opened more than the width of a pony's shoulders—and closed tight behind him as he slipped through. Beyond was the club library, a dimly-lit room with shadowy alcoves and plush, overstuffed chairs. A few lamps made pools of light in a few select areas, but the brightest lamp of all was the one that illuminated the great painting hanging over the doors. Fancypants always turned around to admire it when he came. It showed four mares, painted in the classical style: the original founders of the Society, or so the legends claimed. The records didn't go back half that far, though, and Fancypants privately thought that the founding mares were a myth.

Every new member of the Society was taught about the four founding mares: Podagros the fleet, Xanthos the fair, Lampon the bright, and Deinos the terrible. Red, pale green, white and black. Their cutie marks were a sword, a skull, an arrow, and a balancing scale. The sword of retribution strikes swiftly and without warning, beware, be alert, and be prepared. Death comes to all, rich or poor, there is no force fairer than death, and in the other sense of the word, death can be the fairest of fates for the pony in pain. The light of truth is like a guiding arrow, it always points in the right direction and it never fails. No pony is guiltless, be thankful that true justice has not been meted out on you, pray for mercy and forgiveness, and never think you are somehow a better pony than your neighbour.

It was a very fine philosophy. Words to live by, as it were. But in the end, the Society of Diomedes was more of a social club than a secret society. Fancypants had come here today, for example, only to unwind. Maybe play a game of chess with Pish Posh, the headmistress of Celestia's own School for Gifted Unicorns; or perhaps share a saltlick with Hot Stuff, the elderly former captain of the Wonderbolts. Perhaps Big Macintosh would stop by to crow over the recent announcement that the upcoming Summer Sun Celebration would be held in Ponyville rather than in Canterlot, though the big farmpony was not known to visit the club premises often, much less crow about anything. Even though their connection to each other was a secret, no-one stopped by to plot any devious secret schemes: the whole point of coming to the club was to get away from that sort of thing.

On the other hoof, you could say that the Society of Diomedes, by virtue of its many influential members, ruled Equestria from the shadows behind Celestia's throne. But that was purely an accident: any exclusive social club or secret society that survives long enough, no matter how humble or egalitarian its roots, eventually finds its ranks swelled out with tycoons and magnates, barons and lords. One always favours the pony who belongs to the same club as one, after all. One hoof washes the other; a few generations of this, and you could get some very finely polished hooves indeed. Oh, the members by and large were a proud lot who wouldn't dream of taking advantage of another member's help—some would rather die than ask for it—but they always gave it if they could.

Whatever the professed philosophy, the one thing you could always count on was that the Society of Diomedes took care of its own.


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's note:** I can't believe it took me six chapters to notice that I've been inadvertantly inserting an extraneous R in "Anno Caelestiae". Gahh!

**Edit:** minor changes in the black mare's speech to the townsfolk in the Cult of Diomedes fairy tale: the original speech as written interfered with my plans for the story as a whole.

**A Horse Named Smith**

**Chapter 6**

_Haymarket, Equestria. Anno Caelestiae 906_

Primrose Path was pacing a decidedly un-primrose-lined path in Malachite Dream's carpet. "It's all Happy's doing, of course," she said, for about the sixth time since she'd started. "He means well, but really, how could he even think that those two poor wandering ponies are evil cannibals waiting to bake some poor pony into a pie?"

Malachite didn't like to point out the various points she'd heard the other Haymarket residents whisper over the course of the day. Of course Mister Smith and Strawberry weren't normal ponies—they were missing their cutie marks, for one thing, and what did that mean? And they were rather large for ponies, what had they been eating? They seemed to know too little about simple things like how to climb stairs, and too much about obscure things like the actual names of ponies in the Cult of Diomedes. Malachite knew perfectly well why this was so, now, but she'd promised not to tell any pony, and that included Primrose.

"Grandpa didn't believe a word, thank goodness," Primrose continued, "and of course that meant a bit of a scene over lunch. Happy's upset now, and he absolutely forbade me to go anywhere near the rock farm because they work there. Who does he think he is? I'm a whole half-hour older than he is!"

"Out of curiosity, Primrose, why do you think they're innocent?"

"You don't believe Happy's accusations, do you?"

"I don't, but I'd like to know why you don't."

"No pony who spends a whole minute just being grateful for apples—apples!—can possibly be all bad. You remember. Of course, when I said that to Happy, he said that more likely they just didn't know you could eat apples instead of ponies, so I said that the way Smith spat out the seeds you could tell that he probably grew up eating nothing but apples, but he said that that didn't mean anything and maybe Smith just happens to have a talent for seed-spitting, so I said if that's his talent, where's his seed-spitting cutie mark then, and he said..."

Malachite sighed and waited for Primrose to run out of breath. That could take a while: Primrose was an earth pony, after all, and they seemed to have more breath than most.

"You like them, don't you?" Malachite said, as soon as Primrose hit a likely-looking pause.

"What? I do not!"

"Balderdash seems to think he has something to worry about, anyway. He's stepped up his courtship several expensive notches since Smith and Strawberry turned up." Malachite lifted the bouquet of buttercups and floated it over to a bowl of water. "And I daresay he does have something to worry about, if you're going to just toss his presents aside like that." She arranged the buttercups in the bowl, then picked one out and popped it into her mouth. "Mmm, freshly picked, too."

Primrose frowned. "I don't know, Malachite. Something just seems a little ... off ... about Balderdash. I mean, he seems nice and all, and Grandpa trusts him, but I can't help but feel that there's something he isn't telling. I don't trust him."

Malachite rolled her eyes. Apparently paranoia was a Street family trait. "He's a fine stallion, Primrose. There are a dozen mares in Haymarket who would kill to be in your horseshoes."

"I know. But I don't trust him."

There was no arguing with Primrose, Malachite could see, so she helped herself to another buttercup and changed the subject.

* * *

><p><em>Haymarket, Equestria. Anno Caelestiae 891<em>

Boulevard tucked the twins into bed and gave Rocky an affectionate nuzzle. "There, all tucked in and ready for dreamtime. No last minute requests for a glass of water? No? All right then, I guess I'll head on out and let the sandpony take care of things..."

"Daddy!" cried three little foals in unison.

"No no, I can't imagine what we could be forgetting. It must not be important. I will see you in the morning."

"Story time, Daddy!"

"I want The Little Red Hoof!"

"Snow White and the Seven Shetlands!"

"I want The Cult of Diomedes!" declared Rocky, to the puzzlement of the other two. "You haven't told that one in ages!"

"I've never heard of that one," said Happy curiously.

"I want to hear it too!" cried Primrose.

Boulevard glanced at the twins. Well, they were old enough, surely; just a few months younger than Rocky when he'd first heard it. "All right then. The Cult of Diomedes it is. First, let's blow out the candle, because this is a story best heard in the dark. Now. Once upon a time..."

Once upon a time, there was a very bad little pony. How bad was he? Well, he wouldn't come to dinner when his mother called him, and he wouldn't go to school. In fact, when his father left him at the schoolhouse door, he would wait until his father was gone, and then he would take off into town all on his own. He would steal apples from the merchants, and if anyone found themselves short an apple, he would lie and blame some other innocent pony, and then that pony would get in trouble instead. And when he did go to school, he would start fights with the other foals, and if anyone came out and saw them fighting, he would pretend that the other foal had started it, and cry like rainstorm, and get the other foal into trouble. Even worse, his father was a very important pony in the town, so even if anypony thought that the bad little pony might have been the real problem, no-one dared to say it. And the bad little pony thought he was so smart and so great because he never got caught, and that just made him get worse and worse as time went by.

Anyway, one day, when his father took him to school as usual, he decided he would much rather go explore the woods on the edge of town, so he off he went without telling anybody where he was going. Nobody in town got in trouble that day, and nobody in school either, because the bad little pony had gone off to explore the woods. And because he was so bad, and so proud of being able to get away with everything, he didn't care about staying on the paths like a good little foal should. He just galloped off into the wild bushes and trees, until finally he came to a house in the middle of the woods. In front of the house was a garden, and in the garden was an old mare who was as green as poison, and she said, "oh, you must be a very bad pony, if you're out in the woods instead of being in school, but be you ever so bad, you know you mustn't talk to strange ponies, don't you?"

And the bad little pony just trotted into the garden and up to the old mare and said, "I will talk to whoever I want."

Then a second old mare, who was as white as bone and who must have been baking cupcakes because she had a whole tray of them, looked out of a window and said, "oh, you must be a very bad pony, if you must insist on talking to strange ponies in the woods without an adult friend nearby. But be you ever so bad, you know mustn't accept sweets from strange ponies, don't you?"

And the bad little pony just trotted over to the second old mare and grabbed a cupcake, and said, "maybe, but since you didn't actually offer me a cupcake, this doesn't count."

Then a third old mare, who was as red as blood, opened the door and looked out, and said, "oh, you must be a very bad pony, if you're taking sweets from strange ponies, even though they were never offered to you. But be you ever so bad, you know you mustn't enter the houses of strange ponies unless your parents let you, don't you?"

And the bad little pony just trotted past the third old mare and into the house, and said, "I don't care what my parents say."

Inside the house, he saw a fourth old mare, who was as black as blindness, stirring a cauldron. And she said, "oh, you must be a very bad pony, if you're entering the houses of strange ponies uninvited and without your parents' consent. But be you ever so bad, I know you will taste ever so good!"

And then the other three mares came up behind the bad little pony, picked him up, and threw him into the cauldron, and they cooked and ate him!

Of course, things like this can't be kept secret forever, and soon other ponies began to wonder what happened to the bad little pony, and the bad little pony's father, who was a very important pony in the town, got together a lot of other ponies, and they went into the woods to look for him. After three days, they finally found the house of the four old mares, and there beside the house was a pile of little foal bones. And the adult ponies all realised that all the foals who had gone missing over the years must have ended up here, and they decided then and there that they had to stop the mares from eating little ponies.

First, all the earth ponies in town came together, because they were the strongest, and they went up to the house to capture the old mares. But the old green mare came out, and she stamped her hoof, and all the flowers around her leaned over to lend her their beauty; and she became so beautiful that the earth ponies had not the heart to touch her, and were afraid they might break her with their rough, clumsy hooves, and they fell back.

Then all the unicorns came together, because they understood magic and would not be swayed by the spell of beauty, and they went up to the house to capture the old mares. But the old white mare came out, and she stamped her hoof, and began to glow so brightly that the unicorns were all blinded and couldn't see where to point their horns.

Then all the pegasi came together, because they thought they could sweep the old mares off their hooves before any of them could do anything, and they went up to the house to capture the old mares. But the old red mare came out, and she stamped her hoof, and all at once the house and everything in it disappeared into her saddlebags, and she ran off so quickly that none of the pegasi could keep up with her, much less catch her.

The next day, when all the ponies saw that the house was back again where it had been, they gathered together and they went up to the house in peace; and the bad little pony's parents went to the door alone and knocked. This time, the old black mare came out, but she didn't do anything because none of the ponies looked like they wanted to capture her. The bad little pony's parents knelt down and begged the old mares to leave the forest and leave their foals alone. And the old black mare laughed and said, "we are the Cult of Diomedes, and we are but four of many. Were we to leave this forest, our master Diomedes would only send others to take our place. But know you this: that same magic that binds us to the will of Diomedes, and makes us hunger for the flesh of young foals, will not allow us to touch a good foal. We can only eat the bad ones. So go back to your town, and know that if your foals are good and well-behaved, they will have nothing to fear from us."

All the ponies returned to their town after hearing this, and they all repeated the story to their foals, to warn them to behave. After that, the foals in the town became very good and well-behaved, and absolutely none of them disappeared into the cauldron of the old mares of Diomedes. But the mares of Diomedes, of course, don't give up so easily. They can only eat bad ponies, it is true, and they cannot leave the forest ... but they can send little whispers out into the world, to whisper bad things into the ears of little foals, telling them to lie or to cheat or to steal. They know that once a pony starts misbehaving, soon he will be bad enough to eat ... so if you think you hear a little voice telling you to do bad things, it's really the Cult of Diomedes, trying to make you turn bad, because ... be you ever so bad, they know you will taste ever so good.

* * *

><p><em>Haymarket, Equestria. Anno Caelestiae 906.<em>

"And that's the story, as I'd heard it from Primrose," finished Malachite.

Strawberry frowned. "That sounds nothing like the version I'd heard, although there are four mares in that one as well." He was carefully negotiating the stairs in Malachite's house, while Mister Smith concentrated on studying some of the simplest of Malachite's books. Though Mister Smith had been the one to take the fall the first time they'd tried to come down the stairs, the day before, Mister Smith had proved to be faster at mastering the art of trotting down the treacherous things; on the other hand, while Mister Smith recognised more words than Strawberry, it was Strawberry who was making faster progress in reading.

It was their second night of education, and Malachite had told them that they were both advancing with commendable speed. Mister Smith hoped this was true: the more he learned about this world, the more he realised how backward he and Strawberry were. Until the night before, neither of them had heard of toothbrushes, though Strawberry said he thought he'd seen a similar implement in Adam Pye's possession once. Malachite explained what the winged ponies were—pegasi, she called them, which lent credence to Strawberry's initial idea that they might be related to the mythical Pegasus of their home world—and what it was that they did. She explained how this land, Equestria, was ruled by a princess named Celestia, who had both a horn and wings; Mister Smith had responded by describing what he knew of Queen Victoria. Celestia had ruled for over a thousand years, according to Malachite, which Mister Smith found suspicious; he thought that, more likely than not, "Princess Celestia" was a title rather than a name, taken by each ruler as she (or he? was that possible?) ascended the throne. Malachite had pooh-poohed this suggestion, and Mister Smith, not wanting to antagonise one of the only ponies in all of Haymarket who was still willing to speak to him, decided not to argue.

He'd have to see this "Princess Celestia" for himself, one of these days.

Malachite, meanwhile, had expressed a great deal of curiosity as to the humans who ruled their home world, and the horses' relationship with these creatures. He and Strawberry had been quite happy to provide their opposing points of view—heating up as Strawberry began to take offence at Mister Smith's cynical attitude, and Mister Smith began to lose patience with Strawberry's starry-eyed idealism. Things came to a head when Malachite innocently asked about the humans' diet, and whether they ate ponies.

"No, never," said Strawberry, snorting; at the same time, Mister Smith nodded and said, "yes, sometimes."

Strawberry turned to his friend in shock, and narrowed his eyes. "You're just trying to scare Miss Dream," he said, stamping his hoof, "and I won't have it."

"You've probably never been to the right kitchens. Quite a few places serve horsemeat, though maybe not all of them are so forthcoming about it."

"There, you see, it's clearly some sort of guilty secret; no human would knowingly eat horses!"

"Plenty of humans knowingly cook horses! And what do you suppose glue is made out of?"

"Fish?" interposed Malachite, seeing the situation begin to unravel. Mister Smith and Strawberry had abandoned their respective activities and were standing nose-to-nose in aggressive stances. "Look, I'm sorry I asked the question." Malachite put a hoof on each stallion's shoulder in an effort to push them apart. It worked better than expected: Strawberry flinched and skittered away, and Mister Smith's expression turned instantly into concern.

"Strawberry, are you all right?"

"I'm fine."

"What happened?" asked Malachite.

"Someone hit Strawberry with a stone this morning," said Mister Smith, a little angrily. "I didn't see who it was, but it wasn't an accident."

"It's all this whispering going on," complained Strawberry, rubbing his shoulder and waving away Malachite's apology. "We've started camping out in one of the storage sheds in the farm, secretly of course. I don't think the stablemaster would have let us stay on in our room after all the gossip he must have heard about us. And now all the shops shut their doors as soon as the shopkeepers see us coming—not that we can afford to buy anything, but still..."

"Happy Trails," said Malachite with a grimace. "Primrose was here yesterday complaining about his gossip campaign. We really ought to do something about it."

"Who is there? You believe in us—we're grateful for that..."

"There's Primrose. She'll speak up for you. She mentioned that her grandfather doesn't believe the stories either..."

"And there's Balderdash," said Mister Smith. "We'd be out of a job if it weren't for him."

"Primrose doesn't seem to like Balderdash much, for some reason." The horses expressed surprise at this, and Malachite shrugged. "I know, it's unreasonable. Don't forget, she's Happy's twin sister, and they can be very similar in a lot of ways. At least she hasn't started a gossip campaign against Balderdash."

So much for allies. No-one had much idea of what the few of them could do, though Malachite agreed that if something were not done soon, a single stone to the shoulder would turn into a barrage, and the two of them would be run out of town. Mister Smith wondered if she ever considered that some of the town must know that she was spending her evenings in their company, and that she might not come out of such a development unscathed either.

"You know," said Mister Smith to Strawberry as they crept into the storage shed again later that night, "we owe Miss Dream a lot. Never mind the impropriety of these evening meetings—and I really wonder if this world has the same ideas of propriety our old world did—but we should be grateful for everything she's doing for us. And quite aside from that ... you know, if anything happens to her, we're the first ponies everyone is going to blame."

Strawberry smiled as Mister Smith realised that he'd just referred to them both, for the first time, as ponies. It would be rather hard if, just when they were beginning to get used to this new world, they were to be chased out of town. No pony, and no horse, likes being excluded from the herd; among the wild of their kind, such treatment is harsh punishment, and Mister Smith and Strawberry were close enough still to their animal roots to feel the horror of exclusion deep in the primal part of their equine brains.

But what could they do? Mister Smith was preparing for the eventuality of their eviction by collecting the apple seeds from their dinners, under the hazy notion that some sort of career might be made out of them; and Strawberry, under Malachite's encouragement, had been practicing his skill with chalk and slate. Neither of them wanted to leave, but it seemed inevitable that they might be forced to do so before long.


	7. Chapter 7

**A Horse Named Smith**

**Chapter 7**

_Haymarket, Equestria. Anno Caelestiae 906_

Mister Smith awoke to the sound of voices just outside the storage shed. He recognised Primrose Path's musical lilt immediately; the other was a slow, gravelly sound, as if the speaker were very old or very tired. Mister Smith edged over to where Strawberry was still sleeping, though thankfully not snoring, and prepared to clap a hoof over his friend's muzzle if the latter should wake up suddenly and noisily.

He could not help but overhear the conversation.

"...give the lad a chance, Primrose. You can see he's utterly devoted to you. And besides, there is the question of the farm."

"Oh Grandpa, I'm telling you, nothing has changed. If anything, I feel even more uncomfortable around him. And what does this have to do with the farm?"

"I'm getting on in years, in case you haven't noticed. Someone's got to take over one of these days, and it's not going to be Rocky: he's up to his withers in ice-cream, of all things, and he's not going to leave Manehattan now to take up the reins here. Happy's quite happy with your father's farrier shop, and, like Rocky, is not going to divide his attention between that and the farm. I know you have your little repair studio, and you don't have to give that up; if you were to marry Balderdash..."

"Well, I don't see why that's got anything to do with it at all!" Mister Smith could easily imagine Primrose giving a proud toss of her head at this. "Why not just leave the farm to Balderdash and be done with it?"

"Blood's blood, Primrose, you can't get away from that," snapped her grandfather, "and I will not have it said that I cheated my kith and kin out of their rights. Look around you, Primrose. This farm is the result of fifty years of blood and sweat, and it's the best that Equestria has to offer. It's too big to be simply slipped away as a side bequest to an outsider. Balderdash is the only pony I trust to keep it going, but he certainly can't buy it from one of you - not if he's throwing away his money on gifts that you can't seem to appreciate - and I won't have the farm sold away to strangers I know nothing about!"

Mister Smith was surprised. He'd been under the impression that it was Balderdash who owned the farm. But ... of course, the Cobblestone Rock Farm ... "cobblestone" was a sort of street paving, wasn't it? So the old pony outside must be Cobblestone himself, of the Street family, Primrose and Happy's grandfather. Who didn't believe the stories about Mister Smith and Strawberry being secret members of a cult of cannibal ponies. It wasn't much, but it was something.

"And I won't have my whole life dictated to me by a field of rocks!"

There was a tense pause. Cobblestone's reply, when it came, was dripping with reproach and barely loud enough for Mister Smith to hear: "I thought your parents raised you better than that. What a disappointment." There was the sound of scattering gravel, and hooves slowly plodding away. A few moments later, Mister Smith heard the crunch of something hitting the gravel, and soft sobbing. Unable to restrain himself, he nudged the door open and peeked out.

Primrose was sitting against a side of the shed, crying. Mister Smith's heart melted. He edged forward and whispered, "Miss Path?"

Primrose jumped and hurriedly wiped the tears away. "Mr Smith! What ... were you eavesdropping?"

"I couldn't help it. I was inside the shed when you and your grandfather came up, and I didn't want to interrupt."

"What were you doing in the storage shed at this time of the morning? Your shift doesn't begin for another hour!"

"Well..."

And this was the serendipitous moment that Strawberry chose to poke his nose out the door. "Oh, I say! Miss Path!"

Primrose seemed to have completely forgotten her troubles, in the face of this sudden barrage of ponies popping up in unexpected places. She nudged Strawberry aside and marched into the shed, determined to discover what Mister Smith and Strawberry had been up to. And discover it she did: Strawberry had just been in the act of collecting up his toothbrush (a gift from Malachite, since the drugstore wouldn't open its doors to either Mister Smith or Strawberry) and it was sitting out in plain sight in the middle of the shed. Further in the back were two cleared spaces with a bit of burlap sacking laid down and a saddle at the head of each. A battered old saddlebag, which she recognised as having once belonged to Malachite, sat open between the two spaces; another toothbrush poked up from it. Primrose turned and fixed the other two ponies with a wide-eyed look. "Have you two been sleeping here?"

Mister Smith felt his cheeks turn warm, and he pawed the ground embarrasedly. "Yes. It seemed like the only option. Please don't tell anyone."

"Have things in town gotten that bad? I'll give that stablemaster a piece of my mind!"

"No no no, please don't" Mister Smith, already uncomfortably aware of how far Malachite was risking her reputation, had no wish to see Primrose risk hers as well. "It's better this way, believe me. Strawberry and I, we can't stay in this town too much longer, not now that ... well, what with everything that's being said. We need to save up our money to make a fresh start elsewhere. It's much cheaper if we stay here until we leave."

"You can't possibly sleep in here. The floor isn't just hard as a rock, it _is_ a rock!"

"We're used to it."

"Speak for yourself," muttered Strawberry.

"Well, this won't do. This won't do at all." Primrose looked around again and turned her nose up at the Spartan accommodations. "I'll speak to Grandpa and see if he can do anything."

"No! You can't tell him! He mustn't know!"

Primrose gave a little snort of frustration. "Well, fine. If you absolutely must live like vagabonds, you'd be better off sneaking into Grandpa's basement at night. It's got its own entrance, from the garden, and it's cluttered with stuff from when my brothers and I were growing up. There'll be at least a couple of old mattresses and beds, in terrible condition but still a good deal better than this!"

Mister Smith considered the option. He had to admit that, after only two nights, he'd grown very fond of the luxurious softness of mattresses. And pillows! How had he ever managed before without pillows? Strawberry, he knew, felt the same way. "Your grandfather won't ... you don't think he'll notice?"

"If you're quiet and discreet, I don't see why he should. Anyway, he's going to Manehattan today for some sort of a business meeting, and then he'll stay another day to visit with my other brother, Rocky Road. He probably won't be back until the day after tomorrow at the earliest. Meet me outside the farm office at sunset tonight - after Balderdash has gone home."

As Primrose trotted off, Mister Smith reflected that this was one way to take a crying mare's mind off her own troubles.

* * *

><p>No-one threw any stones at either of them that day. No-one ever came close enough to do so. They were left so much alone that, after telling them that he'd give them their job assignments for the day "in a few minutes", Balderdash never remembered to tell them what to do until almost noon. And of course that meant the loss of another half-day's pay.<p>

* * *

><p>As arranged, Mister Smith and Strawberry returned to the rock farm after dinner - first informing Malachite Dream that they would be a little late that evening - and sat down to wait. The sun was just disappearing over the edge of the Whinnysconsin treeline when Primrose crept up furtively, wearing a dark bonnet and cape. "I don't want anyone to see me, or recognise me if they do," she explained. "And neither do you, I think. Come on."<p>

They followed Primrose to the large, stone house near the southeast corner of the farm. Neither of them had been this close to it before; from a distance, it looked more like a large pile of rocks, but up close one could plainly see the slate shingles and the narrow windows, and the seemingly haphazard stacking of stones began to take on the appearance of pattern. "My great-uncle Crazy Paving built this," whispered Primrose. "He was quite brilliant, but not exactly all there, if you know what I mean. He had this mad idea that one fine day Princess Celestia might accidentally drop the sun, and then anyone without an underground bunker to hide in would get fried to a crisp."

Malachite had explained the Princess's role in raising and lowering the sun over Equestria, the night before. It was another thing that Mister Smith found hard to believe, and even Strawberry, who was less prone to questioning these things, seemed amused by the idea.

In any case, one pony's belief, that the Princess could accidently drop the sun on top of his head, had led to the construction of an underground bunker, accessible from a discreet part of the garden and now used by the family as basement storage. The three of them were able to slip inside easily, without coming within sight of the house. Primrose lit a lantern and placed it on top of an old chest. In the light of the lantern, the clutter of forgotten treasures cast weird shadows over other bric-a-brac; uneven stone walls were only just visible beyond them. "My brother Rocky loved to come in here to rummage around the old stuff. Happy and I preferred to stay away. I don't think I've ever been all the way down the steps, in fact. I do remember that Rocky's bed was moved down here when he moved out. So was our parents' bed, after they died."

"I'm sorry."

"It was a long time ago. Anyway, you're free to stay here as long as you like."

"We'll be as little trouble as we can ... and we'll be gone as soon as we can, once we've saved up enough."

Primrose was silent. The rim of her bonnet hid her face, and Mister Smith was beginning to wonder if he'd made some kind of social error, when she spoke up again. "I suppose you must be saving up quite a bit, living the way you do."

"Not as much as we'd like," said Mister Smith, "something always seems to happen at work, and we end up losing half a day's pay." He quickly outlined what had happened earlier in the day.

"Balderdash docked you - both of you - half a day's pay for that?" Primrose was wide-eyed with shock. "That's not how it works! He ought to pay you exactly what it says in your contract; if he mismanages things so that you spend half the day idling by, that's his problem, not yours!"

"You mean we should have demanded the whole six bits -"

"Six bits!" she exclaimed, and if Cobblestone had been home that night, Mister Smith thought, their secret quarters would be secret no more. "Six bits! Is that what Balderdash has been paying you per day? That's not a day's pay, Mr Smith, that's slave labour! A farmhoof such as yourself should get between nine and twelve bits, that's the standard around these parts, and I know the starting pay here is ten bits a day. Does Balderdash imagine that he's saving Grandpa a few bits like this? That is not how the Streets do business! And wait, he docked you half a day's pay out of that? In other words, he paid you only three bits each for today?"

Mister Smith wasn't sure what to think. It was news to him that he and Strawberry were being grossly underpaid, and it seemed clear that this was Balderdash's doing. But on the other hoof, without Balderdash, they wouldn't be getting any bits at all, and he said so.

"That's not the point!" groused Primrose, stamping her hooves angrily. "Balderdash! Oh, wait 'til I tell Grandpa about this! Do you have your contracts with you?"

Strawberry produced the paperwork, and Primrose read it over in the lantern light. "It seems all in order, at least," she said, grudgingly. "You agreed to six bits a day, according to this, fair and square. Not much you can do about that, I suppose, although I had better not hear anything more about pay being docked for any stupid reasons." She thrust the papers back at Strawberry as though they left a bad taste in her mouth.

It seemed best not to mention the other time this had happened, that incident with the granite chips.

Primrose left in a state of righteous indignation, swearing to shake the farm from top to bottom to give them justice; and while Mister Smith appreciated the sentiment, her intensity was just a little more than he had expected. He had managed to placate her a little, advising caution, once again reminding her that, for all he might be taking advantage of them, Balderdash was still the only reason they weren't starving in the streets. It would not do to make him an enemy, especially not now, when every other pony in Haymarket was against them.

"We'll just have to do something about the rest of Haymarket, then. That much is Happy's doing, and Happy will fix it or else," Primrose said as she stalked off with her head high. She was determined to have another word with her brother. Mister Smith did not expect much to come of it. He trusted Primrose enough to think that she must have already been doing what she could, and another word would probably do little difference.

And now there was the matter of Balderdash. Mister Smith sighed. "I really thought Balderdash was our friend," he said. "I can't believe he's been doing this to us, and I can't think why he would. There must be another explanation. Perhaps times are hard all around, and the usual farmhoof pay is lower these days than Miss Path imagines. Strawberry, what are you doing?"

Strawberry had retreated into the shadowy depths of the basement, and was poking about the things stored there. "Mister Smith, there's all sorts of interesting things back here. You have to come and take a look at some of the things I've found."

"Strawberry, this is no time to go rummaging around in other people's rubbish. We should be on our way to Miss Dream's."

"Oh! Yes, I'm sorry, but when we get back you'll have to take a look at this. There's a manger here, all made out of a thick, heavy metal. It might be bronze, I can't quite see. Remember the story I told you? Our world's version of the Diomedes story? Just like that one!"

Mister Smith froze at the top of the steps, then turned right around and came down - had he thought about it, he would have wondered how he'd managed that. "Really? Let me see." He grabbed the lantern and edged past the towering piles of junk to the back of the basement. Sure enough, half-buried beneath two rolls of old carpet, was a manger. And Strawberry was right, it did look like it might be made of bronze. It was just large enough for an average-sized pony to lie down in.

Mister Smith grinned. He'd never grinned before in his life, and it felt like his face was about to fall off, but it also felt right, and this was clearly the moment for it. "Strawberry," he said, "let us go on to Miss Dream's. I have an idea."

* * *

><p>Balderdash made no attempt to cut into their pay the next day, though Mister Smith was excited enough to not care if he did. No-one else came near them until late afternoon, when Malachite, who had been quite willing to help, met up with them. Primrose, she said, was also quite willing, though her various social obligations (another date with Balderdash) meant she would be unable to join them until much later. They were free to discuss their plan as much as they liked.<p>

* * *

><p><em>The Great Whinnysconsin Woods, Equestria. Anno Caelestiae 906.<em>

The last thing Happy Trails remembered was closing up the shop, and then a sack being thrown over his head. There was the strong smell of ether - Primrose used it as a solvent in some of her projects, he dimly remembered, as blackness overtook him.

He awoke to the smell of garlic and onions. He was lying on something hard and cold and metallic; it came up on either side and contained him like a coffin, though thankfully it was open above. He thought he could see a glimmer of light over the edge on one side, and the outline of tree branches could be dimly seen against the night sky above. Otherwise, he was in darkness. He tried to get up, but was unable: sturdy ropes bound his hooves together, and more ropes bound him to ... whatever it was he was lying in.

"Uh ... hello?" he called out, hesitantly.

There was movement off to one side, and a face swam into view. Well, not a face, really: this pony was wearing a hooded cloak, and Happy could see nothing but a green muzzle. "Oh," said the mare - it was a mare, definitely - "you must be a very bad pony indeed, to be spreading nasty stories about other ponies. But be you ever so bad, you know you mustn't draw attention to the Cult, don't you?"

Happy Trails knew exactly where he'd heard a disturbingly similar speech before. As a pair of candles floated up behind the mysterious mare, Happy saw that he was lying in ... a bronze manger? Hadn't Strawberry Pie said something about a bronze manger, in relation to the Cult of Diomedes? It all tied together! "!" he said. "!" And for emphasis: "!"

The mare chuckled. "Oh, we're real, very real indeed. You knew that, didn't you? We don't like too many ponies knowing we're there, though. Don't want them on their guard, see? So it's really not nice of you to go talking about us." She began tossing bits of chopped onion and garlic into the manger, licking her lips noisily as she did so.

"I ... I knew it! Smith and Pie..." They certainly weren't mares, and this one was much smaller than either of them, but -

"Who?"

Happy blinked, taken aback.

"Oooh, them," the mare said, sniffing dismissively. "They're not one of us. Although, who knows, after what you've done, we might be able to get them to join us very easily don't you think?"

"They're not one of you?"

"No." A shower of chopped carrots joined the onion, garlic and pony melange in the manger. "Now, let's see if you really are bad enough to -"

"What in thunderation is going on here?" Grandpa! Back from Manehattan already? Happy shouted out a warning just as the mare gave an uncharacteristically terrified gasp and disappeared from view. The two candles fell to the ground with a clatter, and Happy thought he heard more ponies galloping away from the scene, and the sound of fabric ripping. Grandpa shouted, "Malachite Dream, I know that's you! Who's that with you? Come back here this instant, you little whippersnappers!"

Malachite Dream?

Oh, of course, this was all some sort of prank, wasn't it?

"I say, Cobblestone, is this how things are done out here in the country?" Another pony came into view, a white unicorn with a glossy blue mane and a monocle. The light was coming from his horn.

"Just some youngsters having their fun, Pinstripe. I'll deal with them in the morning."

Cobblestone and Pinstripe looked down into the manger. Happy Trails grinned sheepishly back up at them through the garlic, onions and carrots. "Hello there. Uh, I was wondering if you could give me a hoof ... I seem to be a little tied up here."

The two older ponies exchanged glances. Cobblestone looked back down, his mouth twitching up into a humourless smile. "No," he said.


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's note:** an interesting discovery: Granny Smith apples originated in Australia in 1868. They didn't appear in the UK until 1935, or in the US until 1972. Mister Smith and Strawberry, being from 1862 England, would therefore never have heard of Granny Smiths. Let's just pretend that Granny Smith apples have always existed in Equestria, shall we?

**A Horse Named Smith**

**Chapter 8**

_Haymarket, Equestria. Anno Caelestiae 906_

They were gathered at Malachite's, waiting for the axe to fall. Mister Smith and Strawberry sat in a corner with their heads bowed low; Malachite's dog, Rex, sensing their despondency, had lodged himself between them and laid his head on his paws. Primrose listlessly poked through the books left on the coffee table"Malachite, why do you have all these Foal's First Readers out? while Malachite herself paced nervously along the same path pioneered by Primrose three days earlier.

"It's all my fault," said Mister Smith. "I'm sorry. It was a stupid idea."

"Don't say that, Smith. It was a fine idea. Mr Cobblestone coming home early was a bit of bad luck. No pony could have expected it."

"He recognised you, though."

"It was all a prank," said Malachite. "As long as no-one knows you two were part of it, no-one needs to think it was anything more than a joke at Happy's expense. I'll tell every pony that I thought it up all by myself..."

"Grandpa will recognise the manger, of course," added Primrose. "He'll know I was part of it."

Things were just getting worse and worse, weren't they? Mister Smith reflected that, after this, there was no way Malachite would be able to hold her head up in town any more—not that the mare seemed to realise this—and now Primrose, who had been so genuinely indignant on their behalf the day before, had been dragged into it as well. He blamed himself.

There was a soft tapping on the door. Everyone froze. There was another hesitant knock, and then the two stallions fled up the stairs while the mares composed themselves and went to the door. From the stair landing, Mister Smith could hear Happy Trails being shown in.

"Heh, good joke there, Malachite," Happy was saying. He was clearly trying to sound upbeat and cheerful, but he came across sounding more like a bundle of nerves. "I guess you were in on it too, Primrose? You two really had me going. Hah. Uh. Are Mr Smith and Mr Pie here?"

"No, why would they be?"

"Whole town knows they've been spending their evenings here, Malachite. I ... uh ... well, what I mean to say is..." There was the sound of hooves scuffing embarrasedly on the floor. "You were right, Primrose. I shouldn't have jumped to the conclusions I did, and I shouldn't have said what I did about them. I know they're not looking for a pony to put into a pie. I mean, I know now, and I should have known before. I'm really sorry about all the trouble I've caused."

Mister Smith blinked and looked around at Strawberry, who looked back with raised brows. This was unexpected. The plan had been to impress on Happy that while the Cult of Diomedes did exist, they did not acknowledge Mister Smith and Strawberry as members; Cobblestone's interruption had, they thought, thoroughly botched the proceedings. They had not expected Happy to have any change of heart after that fiasco, other than for the worse.

"That's unexpected," said Primrose. "What changed your mind?"

"Ah, Grandpa and I had a little heart-to-heart talk. He, uh, made me see sense. I'd rather not talk about it."

Mister Smith glanced again at Strawberry, who was hanging back doubtfully, and decided to descend the stairs and see this for himself.

Happy Trails was perched on the edge of Malachite's divan. He got up as Mister Smith approached and smiled hesitantly. "I thought you might be here. Will you accept my apology?"

Mister Smith didn't really want to do anything of the sort. All the guilt and rage and frustration he'd been feeling earlier had come back to focus on the pony before him; he was suddenly all too well aware that if Happy hadn't voiced his half-baked ideas into the ears of Haymarket's gossips, none of this mess would ever have happened. So what Mister Smith really wanted, right now, was to smash both forehooves in Happy's forehead, turn around, and buck the fellow to kingdom come. He bared his teeth menacingly. Happy took a step back and stumbled into the divan behind him. Malachite and Primrose were about to intercede, when Mister Smith halted and shook his head. He couldn't very well lay his hooves on Happy—not when said hooves were still adorned with Happy's horseshoes. Horseshoes which, Mister Smith remembered, he had never actually paid for. Happy had been uncommonly kind, before this all started. "That's all very well," Mister Smith said gruffly, "but it's not going to fix anything, is it?"

"I'll spread the word, of course," said Happy quickly. "I'll tell everyone in Haymarket what fine, upstanding gentlecolts you and Mr Pie are."

"You do that."

Happy was only too happy to get on it right away, despite the lateness of the hour. Mister Smith called out to him just as he went out the door"oh, and Happy? I'm sorry about the prank tonight, with the manger and the cut vegetables."

Happy mumbled an incoherent acknowledgement and disappeared into the night.

* * *

><p>But as Happy Trails found out, over the course of the following day, words are far easier said than unsaid. Gossip is gobbled up fastest when it is juicy, and "there is nothing wrong with that pony" is spectacularly lacking in juice. Every pony wants to know something dirty about some pony else, because it makes a pony feel smarter: one can say that one is not fooled by the other pony's generally innocuous appearance. Happy actually found himself rebuffed at one point by an old mare who claimed that her knowledge of those "wicked" ponies came from a highly reliable source, and that Happy could not possibly know anything about it; which is to say that she didn't like being told that there was in fact nothing to it at all. By the end of the day, as Happy trailed unhappily back to Malachite's house, he had to confess himself beaten by the very beast he had unleashed days earlier.<p>

"There doesn't seem to be a way to shut them up," he said. "Most ponies don't even know that I was the one who started it, so I can't exactly tell them I was wrong."

The look Mister Smith gave him said it all: you've screwed things up royally, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself.

Happy sighed and looked down at his hooves. "I'll make it up to you somehow, Mr Smith. I don't know how or when, but I swear I will, one day."

* * *

><p><em>Canterlot, Equestria. Anno Caelestiae 919.<em>

Happy Trails nodded to the doorpony as he entered the club lobby. He'd never been to the big Canterlot clubhouse before; he had to demonstrate the secret hoofshake, give the password, and wait for his name to be found on the Society register before the doorpony would let him through. The tall double doors opened just enough to let him in—Grandpa had told him once that the club doors had never opened more than the width of a pony's shoulders—and closed tight behind him as he slipped through. Beyond was the club library, a dimly-lit room with shadowy alcoves and plush, overstuffed chairs. A few lamps made pools of light in a few select areas, but the brightest lamp of all was the one right over his head as he entered. Looking behind him, he saw a massive painting hanging over the doors. It showed four mares, painted in the classical style: Podagros the fleet, Xanthos the fair, Lampon the bright and Deinos the terrible.

Funny how Strawberry knew their names, for all they were supposed to be such a closely guarded secret. They weren't exactly normal pony names, but then again, Strawberry wasn't exactly one for normal pony names, was he? Happy thought back to that time—was it thirteen years ago now?—just before his initiation, when he'd really thought that the Cult of Diomedes ate other ponies, and that Mister Smith and Strawberry belonged to the Cult. Or Society, as the case may be. Funny how things worked out in the end.

"Happy Trails, I say, jolly good to see you!" Pinstripe was approaching, a pair of saltlicks floating along beside him. "How many years has it been? Last I heard, you'd taken to the nomadic lifestyle. I suppose it was only a matter of time before you hit Canterlot, eh?"

Happy grinned and accepted the proffered saltlick. "Yep. I'm actually running ahead of the family, scouting out a place to set up camp and all. The others should be arriving tonight, or tomorrow morning at the latest."

"Mm, not the sort of life I could stomach for long, but you know me: urbanly urbane and urbanely urban, I'd be lost without all the amenities of city life. I dare say it suits you rustic types, though."

Happy frowned and took a lick of salt. "It's all right for a while, I suppose..."

"Oho, is that a hint of dissatisfaction I detect?"

"Well, Pinstripe, if I can be perfectly honest with you, I think it's about time we all settled down. Life on the road ain't for folks with families to raise, and Primrose just found out that she's expecting another one. And it's high time Songsmith and Granny Smith—that's my nephew and niece—got themselves a proper education, at a proper school. I've heard Primrose and Mister Smith talking about it at night, when they think everyone else is asleep. I don't mind saying it, we've been on the road a mite too long."

"Let me guess, you'd put down roots in a heartbeat if you had a place to put them down, right? Hm. Hm hm hm. Well, I'll tell you what, just the other day the Princess was talking about some land near the Everfree Forest that could do with some taming, and we all know how kind and generous she is. If your Mister Smith can impress her ... yes, let's suppose that a certain royal secretary were to arrange for a mid-afternoon jaunt through the city, just as a certain seed-collector and his family happened to be by..."

"History would write itself, I'm sure. Thanks, Pinstripe, I owe you."

"Tcha, think nothing of it. The Society of Diomedes looks after its own, don't you know."

Thirteen years is a long time to hold on to a debt of guilt, and, to tell the truth, both Happy Trails and Mister Smith had largely forgotten that any sort of restitution might be in order after the events of their first meeting. Still, when Mister Smith unhitched himself from the covered wagon for the last time, on the parcel of land that the Princess had so spontaneously and generously presented to them, Happy Trails couldn't help but feel that a heavy weight had been lifted from his soul.

* * *

><p><em>Haymarket, Equestria. Anno Caelestiae 906.<em>

"So now what?" said Mister Smith. "We're clearly no better off than we were before."

"It's a shame," said Primrose, "I can't believe every pony still believes all that nonsense about the Cult of Diomedes. Everyone knows that's a fairy tale."

Happy Trails made an inarticulate, choking sound, which everyone ignored.

"No pony would give that story the least bit of credit if they knew you for even a minute," added Malachite.

"That's it." Strawberry looked up, his eyes wide. "That's it! If the other ponies only knew us ... we've been doing this all wrong. Listen, back in Barchester—"

"Where?"

"Where Mister Smith and I met," said Strawberry hurriedly, not wishing to elaborate. "Back in Barchester, when a new, er, pony came to town, one of the first things they would do would be to have some sort of party to meet their neighbours. If they were rich, it would be a grand ball, with all the big neighbours coming along in carriages, and there would be music and food and fun times. If they were not so rich, it would be a little party in the new house, what they call a 'housewarming', with guests bringing food and presents to help furnish the home. Even if they couldn't have a party, they would still go around and meet the neighbours, say hello, tell them who they are. Sometimes, if the new per—pony were someone official, like a new vicar or a new magistrate, the neighbours would be the ones to throw the party, to welcome him and his family. We never did any of that. No wonder every pony is suspicious and ready to believe the worst!"

"I think I remember housewarmings," said Mister Smith slowly, "but big parties just to welcome strangers..."

"Things may have been different in London, but London is a big city and I don't imagine that everyone there could know even a tenth of everyone else, not even if they tried. Haymarket's more the size of Barchester. I think some of the social conventions might be the same."

Primrose and Happy had never heard of "Barchester" or "London" before. They looked over to Malachite, who only shrugged, as if to say, "don't ask."

"So, Strawberry, what you're saying is...?"

"There's only one solution," said Strawberry Pye, his eyes narrowing in determination. "This calls for a party!"

* * *

><p><em>Trottingham, Equestria. Anno Caelestiae 933.<em>

"There's only one solution," said Podagros "Poddy" Diana Pye, her eyes narrowing in determination. "This calls for a party!"

* * *

><p><em>Fillydelphia, Equestria. Anno Caelestiae 949.<em>

"There's only one solution," said Bucephalus "Bucky" Adam Pye, his eyes narrowing in determination. "This calls for a party!"

* * *

><p><em>Baltimare, Equestria. Anno Caelestiae 971.<em>

"There's only one solution," said Incitatus "Inky" Arthur Pie, his eyes narrowing in determination. "This calls for a party!"

* * *

><p><em>Ponyville, Equestria. Anno Caelestiae 1000.<em>

"There's only one solution," said Pinkamena "Pinkie" Diane Pie, her eyes narrowing in determination. "This calls for a party!"

* * *

><p><em>The Grand Cosmos. Anno Ignoto 0.<em>

The wheels of Fate creaked and shuddered, pausing just a bare millisecond before grinding on at their usual, slow pace. It might not seem like much, but those who pay attention to such things know that somewhere, somehow, something has just chosen its direction.

* * *

><p><em>Haymarket, Equestria. Anno Caelestiae 906.<em>

"Strawberry, isn't it a little late for this? Nobody's going to come to a party if they think they're going to end up _on_ the refreshment board rather than _at_ it. And besides, where would we host this party?"

Strawberry faltered a bit. "Well ... maybe they'll be curious enough to ... isn't there a barn of some sort that we could borrow?"

"There's Pinstripe," mused Happy. "Grandpa's friend. He'll be staying for a little while. I imagine he would like to have some sort of welcome party, and other ponies would be interested in meeting him and finding out what news he has from Manehattan. He's going on to Canterlot to take a position as a royal secretary, you know: that's bound to draw a lot of attention. If you two happened to be there at the same time ... we could tell other ponies that you're his bodyguards, or something like that, that you were here in advance to check things out for him..."

"No," said Mister Smith. "No lies. I know better than to play with the truth, now. Someone's bound to trip over something, and then we'll be in an even bigger mess."

Still, it seemed like a plausible idea. Strawberry and Mister Smith would attend as guests. Nobody would want to offend a newly-minted royal secretary by leaving the party early and with unseemly haste. Strawberry and Mister Smith would be able to mingle, and the others would be able to introduce them around. Before you knew it, everyone's guard would be down, and it would be as if those nasty rumours had never happened. Of course, Cobblestone would be the one to host the party—Pinstripe was his friend, after all—and either Primrose or Happy could quite easily plant the idea in his head. They needn't even worry about the logistics, as that would be Cobblestone's business rather than theirs.

After Happy and Primrose left to whisper suggestions into their grandfather's ear, Mister Smith turned to Strawberry and asked, "music and food and fun times, eh? I've never actually been inside at a party before, though heaven knows I've brought enough people to them. What do you know?"

"Only what I see and hear on the outside. Adam was friends with a lot of servants in and around Barchester, and of course the students always talked about the parties they'd been to. There's a lot of dancing, I think, and dance cards. I think that's a game where you get a card and see how quickly you can get other people to fill it up with their names. The last name on the card is special somehow; perhaps that person wins a prize. It all must have something to do with dancing, too, but I never quite understood how."

They both looked over at Malachite, who sighed. "All right, boys. I suppose I ought to tell you about a delightful little thing we have here called 'Pin the tail on the pony'..."

* * *

><p>Balderdash stood outside the shop window as Haymarket slowly came to life in the morning light. There was still over an hour before the shop opened, and by then he would be at work. He could still pop over on his lunch break, though. The chances of the item he had in mind, a necklace with a magnificent fire ruby centrepiece, being snatched up before then was quite unlikely.<p>

Balderdash chuckled. It was all thanks to those two giant oafs that everything was coming together so wonderfully. Today, he had just enough bits to get the necklace. He'd have been happier if he had a few bits more left over, but timing was everything, and anyway he had the rest of the day to see about engineering something else to milk a few more bits out of Mister Smith or Strawberry. More likely Strawberry, he thought. There was something about Mister Smith that made Balderdash think that pushing that pony too hard might be a bad idea.

But yes, timing. There was supposed to be a party that evening, apparently: a welcome party for Cobblestone's friend from Manehattan, and no doubt Haymarket would be doing its best to impress the sophisticated urbanite. There would be music and dancing and the atmosphere would be just right; presented with such a public display of extravagant romance, and with such a necklace, there could be no way that Primrose would be able to refuse him.


	9. Chapter 9

**Edit: **Apparently I have a problem with emdashes—which I express typographically as a double-hyphen—disappearing on me in the translation to the online format. My apologies to all readers for the rather odd sentences that must result from this. I've just run through the previous chapters trying to fix this, and I hope I was completely successful.

**A Horse Named Smith**

**Chapter 9**

_Haymarket, Equestria. Anno Caelestiae 906_

Balderdash shook his head and sighed. "Oh, Strawberry, what am I going to do with you?"

Strawberry shifted nervously from one hoof to the other. He wasn't entirely sure what had gone wrong, except that apparently Balderdash wasn't too happy about it. "I don't know, Balderdash. I'm just doing the best I can here."

"Well, I'm afraid that's not enough. Most ponies would have finished the whole field by now and gone on to the next. And here you are, still struggling in the middle of the job I set you three hours ago. I suppose it's my fault, really. I shouldn't have put you to work at anything at all without having put you in training first. But you did seem to need the money, and I suppose I let my soft heart override my brain."

"Training? There's such a thing as training? And you don't get paid for it?"

Balderdash shook his head again. "No. Well, I guess I could just let you continue on this field as you were, and consider it as part of your training. The practice run, you know. I'm afraid I really shouldn't be paying you at all, but I'll tell you what: since I happen to like you, and since I know you need the bits, I'll pay you for the morning as though you really were working. But the afternoon will be on the training schedule, so you won't get paid for that."

Strawberry began to bow his head in dispondent acceptance of the situation, when he remembered what Primrose had said on the subject. "No," he said, raising his head high again. "No. I won't lose half a day's pay just like that. I won't have it. I ... I think you're making up that story about training and I won't accept it until I've spoken to someone ... else..." Strawberry trailed off. Balderdash, far from being taken aback at his sudden show of resistance, was glaring back aggressively. Strawberry was the larger pony, true, but Balderdash had grown up in a world that allowed him to impose his will on others and he had no trouble doing so now.

"Are you trying to tell me," Balderdash said slowly, taking a deliberate step forward, "that you think I don't know my job? After everything I've done for you?"

Strawberry took a step back. He didn't know what to say. Primrose might have been right about all those other times when Balderdash had found some reason or other to cut their pay, but what if, this one time around, Balderdash were telling the truth? What if there really was some sort of rule about not being paid while one was in training? All of Adam's students were "in training", weren't they, now that Strawberry thought about it, and little though he'd heard about Adam Pye's financial affairs, he did rather get the impression that the students paid Adam rather than the other way around. In Strawberry's current stress-induced confusion, it therefore seemed to make sense that Balderdash shouldn't pay workers in training. And yet...

"It's not fair," Strawberry mumbled weakly.

"Don't give me that," said Balderdash fiercely, thrusting his face into Strawberry's. The latter stumbled back and fell heavily onto his rump; in this position, Balderdash was able to loom over him, and Strawberry's ears flattened back in fear. Balderdash prodded Strawberry in the chest with one forehoof—a relatively mild act of intimidation for any anthropomorphic creature, but for Strawberry, who was unused to the use of forelegs as arms, it was doubly intimidating, a warning that a vicious kick might be in the offing if he made a misstep. "Strawberry Pie, you listen to me. You have a choice, see? Either you accept this offer, and I'm being very generous here, of a half day's pay, and you keep working at this farm ... or I fire you on the spot, which means you get nothing for today, nothing ever after. Got that? What's going to be, Strawberry? Well?"

"I ... uh ..."

"Well, Strawberry?"

Strawberry looked down. "I'll take the half-day's pay," he mumbled.

"I can't hear you, Strawberry. What did you say, Strawberry?"

"I said I'll take the half-day's pay."

"Good. That wasn't so hard, was it?"

Strawberry lowered his head. He heard a low chuckle rumble in Balderdash's throat, and then hoofsteps as Balderdash ambled on towards the next field. "Get to work, Strawberry," he heard Balderdash say in the distance, "if you manage to finish this field by the end of the day, maybe you won't still be in training tomorrow."

Truth be told, Strawberry really was a little on the slow side for the sort of work that Balderdash had assigned him that day, though not so slow as to be remarkable. Previously, Strawberry and Mister Smith had always worked together, but Balderdash's experienced eye had caught the fact that it was Mister Smith's hard work that carried the two ponies onward. Today, Mister Smith was assigned to the gravel beds and the tedious task of sorting out the chips, while Strawberry was assigned the task of seeding one of the more remote limestone fields. Without Mister Smith to help him, Strawberry was all alone—certainly none of the other ponies had any intention of getting within biting distance of him.

When the lunch whistle sounded, Mister Smith came in search of Strawberry, and found his friend still hard at work. "I can't stop," Strawberry said, "Balderdash said I had to finish the whole field by the end of the day, or I'll still be in training tomorrow..."

"In training?"

Strawberry explained what Balderdash had told him. Mister Smith looked around at the field. They'd never handled a whole field, just the two of them, in a day before: the last time they were on planting duty, they'd been assigned to fields that had already been at least half-done. Mister Smith was quite sure that it would take at least four or five ponies to accomplish the complete planting of one of these large rock fields in a single day. Strawberry would never be able to do it.

"And he's not paying you as long as you're 'in training'? Hm. We'll have to speak to Primrose about this. She'll know if that's a legitimate practice."

Strawberry, his mouth full of chips, nodded briefly and continued working. Mister Smith looked out over the field again, then turned back to Strawberry. "All right, put that bag down. I'll help you out until the whistle calls me back to the gravel beds. For all the good that will do ... at least it'll bring you a little closer to finishing."

Strawberry threw the seed bag to the ground, and Mister Smith took a mouthful of chips. It was just as he'd done with the granite chips before: dig, spit, bury, repeat. If Strawberry thought he had time to stop and marvel, he would have.

Mister Smith had just gotten to the end of the furrow when Balderdash came trotting up. From the look on his face, he wasn't too happy about Mister Smith putting his hoof in. "Just what do you think you're doing, Smith? Aren't you supposed to be over at the gravel beds, sorting chips?"

"It's my lunch break. I can do what I like with my lunch break, can't I?" Mister Smith was quick to observe the shopping bag slung around Balderdash's neck: the foreman pony had clearly used his lunch break to go pick something up at the stores, and Mister Smith was prepared to draw attention to it if he had to.

Balderdash snorted in response. "Extra work over your lunch is all very well and good, but you're in someone else's assignment. That's interference. We can't have that. Strawberry is in training. How can I possibly evaluate his work now, when you've gotten your hoofprints all over it? Get back to the gravel beds, now. And Strawberry, I'm afraid you'll have to start over. Dig up everything your friend here has planted."

"What?" cried Mister Smith indignantly. "That's not fair!"

"Haven't I always been the soul of fairness here? Get back to the gravel beds, Smith. Do as you're told."

Mister Smith ground his teeth, but turned and stalked back towards the gravel beds. He looked back just the once, to see Strawberry dejectedly digging up his hard work. Primrose was right, there was something unsavoury going on here, and Mister Smith was determined to make Balderdash pay for it.

When the whistle sounded again at the end of the day, Mister Smith galloped back to Strawberry's field. Strawberry was still busily planting away; Mister Smith had to practically shove him away from the furrow to make him stop. "You have to stop now, Strawberry. There's the party tonight, remember? I don't care what Balderdash says about getting this field done, our future in this world depends on us making a good impression tonight with the other townsfolk, and that isn't going to happen if you're out here working the fields instead."

"Maybe you should go alone, Mister Smith. You can put in a good word for me. I need—"

"A fat lot of good a 'good word' is going to do!" whinnied Mister Smith. "They didn't listen to Happy, they didn't listen to Primrose, and they didn't listen to Malachite! What makes you think they'll listen to me? You've got to show them, Strawberry! You have to show them all!"

"Balderdash said—"

"Bother Balderdash! That pony is not our friend!" Mister Smith stamped his hoof angrily. "What does he want, anyway? Why is he so determined to cut our pay? We're being paid less than anyone else as it is, at least according to Primrose. He's clearly not interested in getting extra work for nothing, if he had you undoing perfectly good work earlier..."

Strawberry shook his head in puzzlement. "I don't know."

"I wonder..." Mister Smith frowned. "Strawberry, you're a better reader than I am. Did you see the words on that shopping bag Balderdash came back with?"

Strawberry had been too upset at the afternoon's turn of events to observe anything, and Mister Smith was obliged to trace out the words on a patch of dirt with a stick. "I think that's it," he muttered. "There might have been another E there ... or maybe not..."

Strawberry cocked his head and said, "Gingerber Jewellers. That doesn't make any sense ... unless you mean Ginger Beer? There ought to be a space there and another E there. Could that be a pony's name?"

"Of course. I'm sure I've heard that name in town before. Why is Balderdash shopping for jewelry? What exactly does jewelry mean here?"

"If it's anything like it is with humans ... jewelry was usually a gift for the ladies, although the gentlemen sometimes liked to have some as well. But it was a lot more visible with the ladies. They had things like necklaces and rings and brooches. I remember one of Adam's students talking about it: he was courting a lady somewhere, but another, richer fellow came in with a very expensive ring and stole the lady away with it."

"How...?" Mister Smith shook his head. He was feeling a little too impatient to stop and ask for an explanation as to how someone could kidnap a lady with a ring. Perhaps it was used as bait. The one thing he got from Strawberry's tale was that jewelry was expensive, and perhaps out of the price range of a normal person or pony. Connections were being made in his brain: Balderdash was actively stopping money from coming to Mister Smith and Strawberry; at the same time Balderdash was buying jewelry that he probably could not normally afford. Did this mean that Balderdash was in fact diverting their pay to himself, with a view to making these expensive purchases?

You and I know, of course, that jewelry in Equestria is not so costly as jewelry on Earth: gemstones in Equestria grow in the ground like granite, after all. Most items at Ginger Beer's would have been easily within the price range of the average pony. Had Mister Smith known this, he might not have made the conclusion he had; he was a simple horse who, though he understood the concept of money, had little idea as to what one might want to use it for. He had no idea about the cost of taking a favoured mare out for a night on the town, to expensive restaurants and to plays and concerts—thus was how most of Balderdash's ill-gotten gains were spent. It is fortunate, therefore, that Mister Smith had only Strawberry's understanding of Earth jewelry to go upon. It was in this way that he arrived at the correct conclusion via a string of fallacies.

Where did Balderdash get the money to pay all the workers, though?

Strawberry, meanwhile, still looked skittish and hesitant. "I don't know why Balderdash is behaving like this," he said, "but are you sure? I mean, aren't you jumping to conclusions here? Remember what happened when Happy did that."

Mister Smith thought for a moment. "We'll take the question to Cobblestone," he said at last. "Cobblestone's the pony who's actually in charge here; Balderdash just runs the day-to-day business. If anyone knows what ought to be and what ought not to be, that pony would be Cobblestone. We'll have to try and talk to him at the party tonight."

"If he isn't afraid to speak to us."

"He doesn't think we're evil cannibals, remember? Well, I hope he hasn't changed his mind." Happy had been exceptionally reticent as to what had happened between him and his grandfather the night they'd tried to prank him with the bronze manger, and Mister Smith worried about what Cobblestone thought of it all.

"It all happens at the party, then," sighed Strawberry. "I know, I know, it was my idea ... but it still makes me a little nervous."

"It'll work out, you'll see. Now come on. We'd better get over to Happy's and get ourselves properly washed and groomed."

Getting groomed by other equines was a new experience for the two horses. Happy gave each of them a bow tie, and how he managed to tie the thing with his hooves, Mister Smith did not know even though he'd watched him do it twice. Primrose attacked their manes with comb and brush, fluffing them out into pompadours that Mister Smith found especially attractive. Mister Smith and Strawberry could do nothing but stand there, raising their hooves or turning their heads at their friends' direction. When Happy, Primrose and Malachite finally pronounced themselves finished, Mister Smith and Strawberry found themselves pushed in front of a cheval glass to take stock of their appearance. Mister Smith had to confess himself pleased by the end result. "I look like a completely different pony," he said, admiring his reflection. He looked ... he looked respectable, that was it. He'd never considered before that there might have been a certain disreputable edge to his uncultivated appearance.

"Honestly," said Primrose, "it's as if you two had never so much as freshened up after a day's work." Mister Smith could only chuckle nervously at that.

At Malachite's suggestion, the two mares arrived at the party first, while the stallions waited until most of the guests had been gathered before making their appearance. It was expected that no pony would want to insult their host by making a speedy departure on the arrival of the two supposed cannibals, and this way they could be assured that very few ponies would avoid the party altogether on account of Mister Smith's and Strawberry's presence there.

As it was, the level of discomfort jumped several notches when they made their appearance. You could hear it in the silence and see it in the wary glances; over at the pin-the-tail-on-the-pony game, the blindfolded colt was quickly pulled aside and his blindfold hastily removed. Only Pinstripe, wilfully oblivious, continued chatting to Malachite, which was perhaps not such a good thing. Malachite had a role to play in their entrance, and if she were being kept occupied... Mister Smith and Strawberry looked around, their smiles just as forced—or more so, since they'd never really known how to smile until a week ago. Was it a bad idea after all?

Primrose pushed her way through the crowd, dragging a skinny pegasus mare with her. "Happy," she said, a trifle loudly, "I thought you'd never get here! I see you've brought Mr Smith and Mr Pie. How do you do?" The mare behind her gulped uncomfortably.

"We wouldn't miss it for the world," declared Mister Smith, following the lines Malachite had written for him. "After all, we've never been properly introduced to Haymarket, and this is a splendid opportunity."

"The band should be starting up again in a minute, so you're just in time for the dancing," said Primrose, also reciting her lines. Without Malachite, however, she had to improvise the next"Allow me to introduce, by the way, my friend Angelflame. Angel, my dear, these are the ponies I was telling you about."

"I ... I've heard so much about you." Angelflame's eyes had the slightly glazed look of someone staring Impending Doom in the face. Whatever she'd heard had probably more to do with the old gossip than with Primrose's more recent assurances.

The next line should be Strawberry's. That was the part where he was supposed to ask Malachite, if she were here, for a dance, but Strawberry seemed at a loss for words. Mister Smith had to nudge him to get him going. "Ho ho," Strawberry said quickly, "is that a hint? Well, I'd be happy to take Miss Angelflame on a tour of the dance floor." Strawberry executed a low and eloquent bow, which had not been in the script, and extended a hoof to Angelflame. Angelflame glanced around, saw only expectant looks on the ponies closest to her—Primrose, Happy and Mister Smith—and reluctantly touched her hoof to Strawberry's. Strawberry whisked her down to the dance floor with perhaps a little more grace and enthusiasm than Mister Smith had expected, and he wondered if ... but no, there was no time for wondering. Happy was already in the middle of his "I see you're in good hooves" speech, and now Mister Smith was to escort Primrose out onto the dance floor himself.

Mister Smith took a quick look around as, at Happy's prodding, the band started up with the very dance Malachite had taught them the night before. Pinstripe was leading Malachite onto the floor, and thank goodness for that: a third couple on the floor meant that they were part of the party as a whole, so perhaps Malachite's distraction had been a good thing after all. Malachite herself gave him an apologetic look as Pinstripe swept her on, but Mister Smith rather got the impression that she was not entirely adverse to his company. Meanwhile, it sounded as though Strawberry was reciting poetry to his dance partner, who still looked a little dazed at the turn of events. Mister Smith sighed in relief and looked back down at Primrose, who smiled back up at him. Strawberry, Mister Smith thought, had some wonderful ideas sometimes.

At one end of the dance floor, Balderdash glared at the dancers, making no attempt to hide his fury.


	10. Chapter 10

**Author's note:** My apologies for the delay on this chapter. The story is wrapping up, as you can probably tell, and I'm finding it a little difficult to find my way to the conflict resolution. The next chapter may likewise be a while in coming.

**A Horse Named Smith**

**Chapter 10**

_Haymarket, Equestria. Anno Caelestiae 906._

"...of course none of it is true, but where I come from, those were the stories that the ponies of a long, long time ago told because they didn't know any better." Strawberry was speaking to a rather larger audience: Angelflame's younger brother Cherub had joined them, as had a small group of wide-eyed little foals accompanied by anxious guardians. Strawberry had been telling the story of Pegasus, amending the story on the fly to omit all mention of humans. No-one needed to know that Poseidon was humanoid: let him just be a magical being who ruled the seas and created ponies in his spare time. Medusa and her gorgon sisters ... the idea of snakes in place of a mane was terrifying enough, and he didn't have to add that they were not, in fact, ponies underneath all those serpents. Bellerophon was dropped altogether: the idea of Pegasus ever having had a master seemed unnecessarily complicated, and Strawberry simply ascribed Bellerophon's exploits to Pegasus. In any case, he'd never been entirely clear as to which of the two had slain Chimaera, so perhaps it was better this way.

"I think it's awful," said one of the foals, fluttering his wings. "Of course pegasi didn't spring out of the body of a horrible monster..."

"Well, I think it would be quite wonderful if it were true," declared his sister stoutly. "Maybe if I stare hard enough, I could turn some pony into stone. Ooh, fear me!"

"Hah, I'd like to see you try!"

"What about unicorns?" said one of the other foals, a unicorn colt, as the two pegasus foals butted heads and tried to stare each other into stone. "Did you have stories about the first unicorn?"

"Ah, unicorns. Unicorns are a mystery." Strawberry wracked his brain, but could remember nothing but vague legends about virgins. He didn't really want to explain what a virgin was; he'd already severely bowdlerised the incident that had turned Medusa into a monster, and even then the subsequent blood-soaked story, with all its monsters and mayhem, had raised a couple of parental eyebrows. Foals really seemed to appreciate violence in fiction, though, even if their parents did not. "We didn't have unicorns where I came from..."

"No unicorns!" The exclamation drew the attention of a number of other guests, who wandered over to see what the matter was.

"Wait," said the pegasus filly who had revelled in the idea of being descended from a hideous monster, "you come from a place where there aren't any unicorns, and where ponies don't really know the first thing about pegasi? Are you from Earth?"

"Uh ... yes...?"

"I knew it!" The filly hopped around and flapped her wings excitedly. "I knew it! Of course not all the earth ponies came with Chancellor Puddinghead and Smart Cookie when they discovered Equestria! Mr Strawberry here is from there, he's from the place the earth pony founders came from! Is it really awful there? Is it still frozen over? Why didn't you follow Puddinghead and Smart Cookie? Swashbuckle, do you know what this means? Those lands that the founders came from, they're still out there! Why hasn't anyone gone out looking for them? As soon as I'm old enough, I'm going to go find them!"

"Honestly, Derring," sighed Swashbuckle, "you're always going on about going somewhere someday, and sometimes I wish you'd just go away already..."

"Aren't there any stories about things that actually happened?" asked Angelflame quickly, before the two pegasus foals could begin bickering again.

"Well..." Strawberry thought hard. "There's, uh, Bucephalus the Great..." Such an easy thing, switching in Bucephalus for Alexander. And it was all technically true, no? In any case, Strawberry was growing more and more comfortable with spinning these yarns for his audience—Pinstripe and Malachite had joined the audience by now, and Strawberry noted that Pinstripe seemed to be particularly interested in the story—and less and less anxious about finding a way home. What need had he now for Adam Pye's attentions? He was having the time of his life.

* * *

><p><em>Cloudsdale, Equestria. Anno Caelestiae 987.<em>

The life of the intrepid journalist and foreign correspondent takes one all over the kingdom, and one does not always manage to enjoy the comforts and joys of home as often as one would like. So, on the rare occasions when he could string two days of hometime together, the one thing Paperchase did not want to do was to find his only daughter, the pride of his pegasushood and the light of his life, sniffling into her hair behind a cloudbank in the backyard. Paperchase sighed and hunkered down beside her. "Bullies again?"

The filly nodded dejectedly.

Paperchase couldn't understand it. They came from a long line of explorers and adventurers; heroes, even. Uncle Freewheeler had single-hoofedly tamed an out-of-control cumulonimbus; Aunt Glory was still documenting the zebra tribes somewhere beyond even his own range. Cousin Blue Mane might not trumpet his exploits the way the rest of the family did, but Paperchase thought it awfully suspicious that the reserved, effete dilletante seemed to disappear every time the masked vigilante Bat Horse showed up. Some of them, himself included, had had enough adventure in their lifetimes to fill a book! (A book? Now there was an idea...) Courage was their family name ... and here was his daughter, his pride and joy, shrinking away from schoolyard confrontation. He'd somehow managed to breed a damsel-in-distress, and how that had happened was a mystery worthy of Cousin Fedora. It was probably all the fault of that registry clerk who'd botched the spelling of "Shutterfly".

"Look," he said gamely—he had no idea how to deal with these emotional issues, but "nothing ventured, nothing gained", and he wasn't about to be scared off so easily—"Look, you've got to keep your chin up and just look 'em in the eye when they try anything. That's all you have to do. All it takes is a little courage."

The filly shook her head. "I'm sorry," she barely whispered. "I'm sorry I'm such a disappointment."

"You're not a disappointment," Paperchase lied. He could kick himself. He was a journalist and he worked with words: he ought to know that "courage", being the family name, was probably not the right word to use in this situation—it implied that she had none, and that she was, therefore, unfit to be part of the family. He should have said "bravery", perhaps; or "guts". Not "courage". "Do you know," he said, changing tactics, "there's this story your grandmother told me, which she heard from her father, who heard it from ... well, never mind that. The story goes that a long time ago there was this pony called Medusa..."

Telling the story took a while, especially as Paperchase had no intention of skipping any lurid details. Just because he was a serious, responsible reporter didn't mean he didn't enjoy a spot of yellow journalism every now and again.

As he pronounced the happy-ever-after, his daughter gazed pensively off into the sunset, and said, "I don't want to turn any pony into stone. That would be mean. And besides, those meanies are pegasi too, so what if they turned me into stone..."

Paperchase had to admit defeat. If his daughter did not think that being descended from such a fearsome mythical monster was the coolest thing ever, as he and most of his cousins had when they'd first heard it, he was plumb out of ideas. "Well," he said gruffly, "that's just the story I heard. You'd better come inside: it's almost time for supper."

After Paperchase had left, his daughter fluffed up a bit of cloud into a lump and looked at it thoughtfully. It looked a little like one of the bullies at school who'd been so mean to her. What if...? She fixed the lump of cloud with a fiercest glare she could muster. It would be mean, true, but they were mean first and it would serve them right if ... if ... no, no pony deserved that. She blinked, wiped the tears away, and fluttered back to the house.

Behind her, the lump of cloud toppled over and shattered in a distinctly un-cloudlike fashion.

* * *

><p><em>Haymarket, Equestria. Anno Caelestiae 906.<em>

In another part of the hall, Mister Smith was making a retreat, as respectably as he could, towards an open window. Dancing with Primrose had been surprisingly pleasant; he wasn't sure if it was because he no longer had to contend with Malachite's instructions, or if it had been something else entirely. And yet, there had also been a certain sense of claustrophobia that made his head swim. He fiddled with his tie—he had long since ceased to marvel at the articulation of his forelegs—but knew immediately that that had nothing to do with it.

Perhaps he was falling ill.

He stuck his head out and took a deep breath of cool night air. He could smell lilac and lavender and damp earth. In the background, he could hear Strawberry talking away, his speech punctuated by the odd exclamation or question. Good for Strawberry, Mister Smith thought. Good that at least one of us is making such a great success of the evening. Hah, maybe you ought to put in a good word for me!

"Something wrong, Smith?" Happy Trails had wandered up beside him without his noticing, a glass of punch balanced on his head. "Care for some punch?"

Mister Smith eyed the glass warily. It looked a little too delicate to be gripped between two hooves, and it had no handles. He shook his head. "Thanks, I think I'll survive."

"As you wish." Happy somehow bounced the glass off his head and onto one hoof, and took a long sip of it. "It's pretty good stuff, made from wild berries. Grandpa's really gone all out to impress Pinstripe: you should see the refreshment table."

Mister Smith spared the refreshment table no more than a glance, then looked back around the hall, wondering, for no reason he could think of, where Primrose had got to. It didn't look as though she was in the crowd surrounding Strawberry. Strawberry, he could see, had been moved to stand up on the bandstand while the musicians took their break. "Strawberry seems to have made quite a hit with the townsfolk," Mister Smith said.

"Who knew he had such a lot of stories to tell," commented Happy as he drained his glass. "And you seem to have made quite a hit with my sister."

"Beg pardon?"

Happy grinned and poked him in the ribs. "I think you'd have to be blind not to see the way she was looking at you out there on the dance floor. I think it's my brotherly duty, by the way, to inform you that horrible things will be done to you if you break her heart..."

Mister Smith's thoughts went straight to Balderdash. He remembered the overheard conversation between Primrose and Cobblestone, about Balderdash's courtship. Could it be that Balderdash was jealous, and that this was the motive behind his treatment of Mister Smith and Strawberry? Surely he couldn't be jealous of them both. Why should Strawberry suffer because Primrose seemed likely to prefer Mister Smith over Balderdash? Mister Smith scanned the room again, this time noting that Balderdash also seemed to have disappeared. It was a little worrisome. Mister Smith was no stranger to the violence born of jealousy: he'd seen his share duels and brawls through the various strata of London society, and if these ponies were anything like humans in their thinking, it would not surprise him if some that same behaviour repeated itself among them.

It might be a good idea to go looking for Primrose, and he said as much to Happy. Happy had other ideas, though: "Looking out for Primrose is my job, Smith. You want to go mingle with the guests. That was the whole point of getting you and Strawberry in here, wasn't it? Here, you go have a game or two of Pin-the-tail-on-the-pony, and I'll go look." Happy shoved Mister Smith over to the game, and before Mister Smith could protest, he had a blue tail stuck in his mouth and a blindfold over his eyes.

It was a silly, silly game, Mister Smith had thought when Malachite first introduced them to it the night before, and the blindfold triggered a panicky feeling in the pit of his stomach, which he tried hard to suppress. He was spun around two or three times, and he heard a strange pony's voice—Happy had evidently gone off in search of Primrose and left him here—tell him cheerfully to just go forward, the target was right in front of him.

Mister Smith really didn't feel that he had the time for this. He rolled the pin in his mouth, noting that it was about the size of one of the rock chips he'd been handling for the past week or so, and spat. He felt a queer sense of deja vu as he did so.

A gasp went up from around him, and he heard the drumming of several hooves on the floor. Someone whipped off the blindfold—thank goodness!—and pointed out that he'd gotten the closest to the pictured pony's rump of all the players so far, all without having actually approached the picture. "Do that again!" cried someone, "Blind Spot wasn't looking, he's got to see this! Hey, Cobblestone! Cobblestone, come look!"

Against his will, Mister Smith found himself as much the centre of attention as Strawberry.

* * *

><p><em>London, England. Anno Domini 1865.<em>

A hush came over the pub as Jack Sloan was blindfolded and spun around three times. "Might want to get your heads down, boys," said a heckler in the crowd, "no telling where the darts will end up. Not but I ain't got the fullest confidence in your skills, Jack!"

Jack said nothing, but lifted a dart and let fly. Three times he did this, and each time he heard the solid thunk of a steel point sinking into elm. A cheer went up as the third dart struck home. Mr Cobb, the publican, removed the blindfold and shoved a pint of stout into Jack's hands. "What did I tell you?" Mr Cobb declared, shouting to be heard about the din, "Two 20s and the bull's eye! All you nay-sayers can pay up now; the rest of you layabouts wait while I tally your winnings."

Congratulatory pats on the back were coming from all around, mostly those who'd had the good fortune of betting on his success. "Amazing thing, Jack! I know I ain't challenging you to a game any time soon. How'd you get so good? What's your secret?"

Jack laughed. "I always had a good deal too much time on my hands, back when I was a lord's coachman—before his lordship ruined himself on cards, I mean, and lost it all to the creditors. My mum always said idle hands were the devil's workshop, so I kept 'em busy with throwing darts." Jack took a deep draught of his stout, and reminisced fondly of those old days. There had been one horse in particular who'd always seemed interested his solo dart games, neighing appreciatively when he hit his target and snorting when he did not. It had an odd name, that horse: Mister Jones or Mister Brown—no, Mister Smith, that was it. Jack would have bought that horse if he'd had the money at the time, but he hadn't, and it had gone to one of the stuffy lawyers who'd handled his lordship's downfall. Jack wondered if the lawyer still had the horse, and if not, then where was it now.

* * *

><p><em>Haymarket, Equestria. Anno Caelestiae 906.<em>

At that moment, Primrose and Balderdash were having a private discussion out in the garden.

"You're too cruel, Primrose," Balderdash was saying. "Here I am, practically dying for your sake, and will you even spare me a kind word? Would you have me lasso the moon down for you? I'd do that, if you'd only smile at me once..."

"Balderdash, stop it," Primrose said uncomfortably. It had probably been a mistake to let the stallion take her outside, but dancing with Mister Smith had, as she had expected, raised her temperature rather more than she was used to, and she needed air. "I'm really flattered, but you know I don't see you that way."

"Are you sure? Look, perhaps this will change your mind..."

Primrose gasped. Balderdash had drawn out of his vest pocket a necklace set with a magnificent, heart-shaped fire ruby. Its facets caught the moonlight and glowed with a soft radiance; it made her instinctively want to cup it between her hooves and hold it close to her own heart, and warm herself in its light. "It's ... it's beautiful!"

"Only because you are too, darling. Shall I put it on you?"

What could she say? What could she do? She watched as Balderdash brought the ruby close and began to fasten the necklace around her neck. The ruby rested warmly at the base of her neck; she could almost see herself glowing in its light. Half-mesmerised, she almost missed the fact that Balderdash was bending his knees in the classic wedding-proposal stance.

"Primrose Path, will you—"

"Don't! Don't say it!" Primrose pulled back, the spell broken. Suddenly, she wished more than anything that she'd had the presence of mind to refuse the ruby when Balderdash had first offered it to her; now it hung on her neck like a bleeding albatross, and she fumbled to find the catch to remove it.

Balderdash drew back, crestfallen. "What do you have against me, Primrose? Haven't I always been the perfect gentlecolt? Haven't I always put you first, in all things?" He paused, and frowned. "Is there some pony else?"

"What? No. There's no pony else."

"It's Mister Smith, isn't it?" When Primrose failed to answer, Balderdash went on: "I saw the way you were looking at him when you danced. You don't know that pony, Primrose; I do. He's a shiftless, lazy, lying scoundrel who should be grateful that I've kept him on at the farm as long as I have—"

"That isn't true!"

"Oh, it's very true. I can tell you about all the times I've had to cover up for him and his good-for-nothing friend when they've shirked off work. I really should be imposing penalties of some kind, but—"

"Balderdash?" There was a dangerous quality to Primrose's tone, now, which Balderdash had never heard before, and he felt obliged to stop in mid-sentence. "Balderdash, how much are you paying them?"

"It's all in the accounting books, love. That's not important."

"It is to me. I'm going to speak to Grandpa." Primrose held out the fire ruby necklace to Balderdash, and, when he refused to take it, tucked it into her tail and turned to trot back into the hall.


	11. Chapter 11

**A Horse Named Smith**

**Chapter 11**

_Haymarket, Equestria. Anno Caelestiae 906._

Balderdash was willing to let Primrose go ahead and speak to Cobblestone; at least, he was for all of two seconds. Part of his plan of exploiting the new ponies was to keep them separate from the rest of the town—Happy Trails' suspicions had been something of a godsend—and unable to give their half of the story. It occurred to him in those two seconds that Strawberry seemed to be having some success in ingratiating himself with the townsfolk; it would not surprise him if Mister Smith were having similar success, even if it was only a reflection of Strawberry's.

Which meant that ponies might Talk.

Balderdash dashed to the door to cut off Primrose's path. "No, I can't let you do that."

"What?" cried Primrose, nearly rearing up in surprise. "Why not?"

"Because ... because..." Balderdash suddenly lunged forward and planted his lips on hers. In between his desperation to keep her from discussing the rock farm finances with her grandfather, and his desire to further his courtship, it was the only thing he could think of to do.

Of course, this was the moment that Mister Smith, having finally extricated himself from the Pin-the-tail-on-the-pony aficionados, chose to step outside into the garden.

The sight of the two ponies kissing in the moonlight made Mister Smith's stomach lurch. That settled it: he was definitely ill with something and would have to see a veterinarian in the morning ... if they had veterinarians in this world. At the same time, Mister Smith wondered at the sight. Horses, of course, do not kiss; though Mister Smith had seen humans kissing often enough, it took a while for him to connect the dots and understand that something romantic was afoot, and that he probably should leave the pair alone. It occurred to him fleetingly that he had no idea how to kiss any pony, and that if kisses were the ammunition with which the battle of love was waged, then Balderdash had already won. But were they fighting for Primrose? Surely there had to be some biting and kicking involved if they were, and the idea that he might even want to fight for Primrose was a surprise to him. All in all, the situation confused him, and, combined with his conviction that he must have picked up some mysterious ailment recently, made him want to retreat as quickly as possible.

Primrose herself was not quite so taken by Balderdash's impulsive romantic antics—certainly not so much as she had been by the sparkle of a fire ruby, which I will put down to her tinkerer's attention to artefacts rather than to emotions—to notice Mister Smith's sudden appearance and embarrassed retreat. She pulled away with some difficulty and swiped her hoof at Balderdash, who jerked back just in time to avoid being clipped. "Don't ever do that again!" she snarled, turning to canter after the retreating Mister Smith.

Balderdash was quick to see the direction in which she had turned and to note what—or who—stood at the end of it. "I knew it," he said. "It's Mister Smith ... that stallion is going to be history, understand? I'll see him run out of town so quickly he won't know his hooves from his hindquarters!"

He galloped back into the hall before Primrose could protest, and left her torn between a desire to explain herself to Mister Smith and another to stop Balderdash from doing him harm.

Mister Smith had not retreated quite so far that he had not heard some of the exchange, and he came cautiously back. Primrose cantered over as soon as she saw him. "Mister Smith! I can explain, it's not ... I wasn't—"

"I think I can guess what actually happened," Mister Smith said calmly. "I heard what you said to him afterwards."

"Thank goodness ... but Mister Smith, Balderdash is going to ... I don't know what he's going to do, but we've got to stop him!"

Mister Smith was surprisingly calm and composed for a pony who'd just overheard that he might be run out of town by an irate mob. "I wouldn't worry about that," he said, and there was a grim edge to his voice. "Balderdash is going to find that he's bitten off a little more than he can chew."

"Oh, Mister Smith..."

Mister Smith looked suddenly flustered as Primrose leaned in. "Let's go in, then," he said quickly, turning a little towards the hall door. Something in Primrose's manner made him pause, though, and he stopped and turned again to face her. More gently, he said, "shall we, Miss Path?" He scooped up her hoof with his own and planted his lips on it, and at that moment, Primrose's heart seemed to explode into a swarm of dancing butterflies. A kiss on the hoof, now that was something she'd never seen or heard of before; she was unaware that some nine hundred years before, it had been customary to greet royalty with such an action, and perhaps she might have been even more flattered had she known. As it was, the rational side of her mind called it a far less intrusive method of communicating one's affections, while the less rational side thumped to the rhythm of "he likes me he likes me he likes me".

She wasn't to know, of course, that Mister Smith had opted for that very human gesture because he had no idea what to do-yet-if his lips were to meet hers.

* * *

><p><em>Canterlot, Equestria. Anno Caelestiae 919.<em>

"You kissed her hoof!"

"She's the princess!"

"You kissed her hoof!"

"What was I supposed to do? Shake her hoof like we'd just concluded a business deal?"

"You kissed her hoof!"

"Primrose, settle down! The foals might hear!"

"..."

"Primrose?"

"..."

"I guess I'm sleeping out in the fields tonight, huh?"

"You better believe it, Mister!"

"Look, Primrose, I—"

"You kissed her hoof!"

"I need a saltlick."

* * *

><p><em>Haymarket, Equestria. Anno Caelestiae 906.<em>

Balderdash caught sight of Cobblestone almost as soon as he entered the hall. The old pony was quietly discussing something or other with a small circle of other ponies near the Pin-the-tail-on-the-pony station, looking rather more serious than might be expected given the fact that this was, after all, a party. Pinstripe was among the circle of ponies, and perhaps it was customary for the Manehattan types to mix business with pleasure.

He put on his most earnest expression.

"Cobblestone!" he said, "there you are! I was looking all over for you."

"I was right here," said the old pony, "watching a rather spectacular, if unorthodox, game..."

"I'm sure ... but Cobblestone, if I might have a word? I'm afraid something quite serious has come to my attention." He lowered his voice just enough to appear discreet, without actually making it impossible for the nearest ponies to hear. "I'm afraid I've found out something quite disturbing about our two latest hires. I'm afraid that at least one of them, Mister Smith, has designs on Primrose."

"Does he, now."

"Just earlier this evening, I overheard Mister Smith and his friend Strawberry Pie plotting to seduce poor Primrose—do you know, they were making bets as to which of them could win her first—and marry her for her inheritance."

"Really. I dare say they might try anything, given what you—excuse me, I guess I mean 'we'—pay them."

Balderdash blinked. That was unexpected.

Cobblestone's expression hardened. "Mister Smith spoke to me just before he went out looking for you. He showed me the contract he'd signed with you. Now, is it just me, or is there a six-bit discrepancy between this and the contract that you showed me, for the accounting books, when he was first hired?"

"I'm not sure what you mean," said Balderdash glibly. "I've always been utterly conscientious about these things. I can't imagine where he might have gotten a contract for such a disgraceful amount, unless he forged it."

"That would be a feat," piped up Malachite, "given that they're practically illiterate."

Strawberry, who had joined the gathering crowd around Balderdash and Cobblestone by now, turned bright red. "Malachite!" he squeaked, eyes darting from side to side.

Malachite tossed her head. "Why do you think the two of them have been spending their evenings at my place?" she asked, addressing the general attendance. "I've been teaching them to read and write! Do you really think I'd have been so open about their visits if there were anything unseemly or immoral about them? What kind of mare do you take me for?"

A murmur rippled through the crowd. Malachite's cutie mark was a brass lantern: more than a few of the guests recognised in it Malachite's compulsive need to guide the lost and teach the ignorant. Of course she would think nothing of taking on these strange ponies as students: it was her special talent. Strawberry, meanwhile, looked ready to sink into the ground from embarrassment. It was Pinstripe who gave him a friendly nudge, saying, "chin up, old chap. No shame in admitting your shortcomings, as long as you're doing something about 'em. I dare say you'll be writing your own novels before too long."

Meanwhile, Balderdash was discovering that he had, perhaps, not been as careful as he thought he had been, as a pair of farmhoofs admitted to having observed Strawberry and Mister Smith being paid, and noticing how few bits changed hooves in the process. Sensing his grip on the situation beginning to slip, Balderdash said, "what about the Cult of Diomedes, eh? Every pony knows their connection to the Cult!"

Cobblestone and Pinstripe exchanged a cryptic glance, and the former said, with a dry chuckle, "oh yes. Funny, that. Weren't you of the opinion, back when that nonsense started, that there was nothing in the rumours and that I should keep them on at the farm? While at the same time advising Happy to spread the rumours as far and wide as he could—he told me all about it. Balderdash, it's becoming more apparent to me that perhaps I was wrong in trusting you quite as much as I have. When you convince a pair of illiterate strangers that six bits a day is a normal day's wages, you're taking unfair advantage of innocents; and when you then turn around and tell me that you're really paying them twice that ... Balderdash, when you do that, you're cheating me. And I don't take kindly to being cheated."

Balderdash, speechless, took a few steps back.

"What have you been doing with all the money you've skimmed from me and from those two ponies over the past week, anyway? Was that how you've been paying for all those presents and treats you've been showering onto my granddaughter?"

"I imagine so," said Primrose, from the garden door where she and Mister Smith had just entered the hall. She shook out her tail, and the fire ruby necklace fell glittering to the door sill. "I knew there was something dishonest about you, Balderdash, but I never dreamed you'd stoop to robbing my grandfather."

"That's just his perspective. Primrose ... Primrose, darling, everything I did, I did for you. I'd do anything for you. That necklace is proof of my love for you..."

"Your love?" Primrose's voice rose an octave, and several guests shuffled uncomfortably away from the scene. "You lied and cheated and stole—undermined the values of my family—to buy a pretty ornament, and that is your 'love'? No pony is worth that, Balderdash! No pony!" Primrose slammed her hoof down in anger; and perhaps it was an accident, or perhaps she had subconsciously willed it, but her hoof came straight down on the fire ruby, and with such force that the gem shattered into a dozen blood-red shards beneath her gleaming new horseshoe.

Balderdash fled.

* * *

><p><em>Haymarket, Equestria. Anno Caelestiae 1000.<em>

"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to mourn the passing and celebrate the life of ... er ... Podagros Diana Pie; better known to most of us as Poddy Pie..."

The minister droned on. Bon-Bon stood at the back of the assembly, barely listening. She had little interest in the Pie family. They were rock farmers, which was odd for a family named Pie, and it really seemed that their only claim to the name was the incorporation of the word "Pie" into every Pie's name. Her friend Lyra, however, was leaning slightly forward, a tattered old journal clutched in the crook of one foreleg, her attention focussed on the various Pies gathered in the front row.

They both knew Pinkie, of course. They hadn't known until today that Pinkie's full name was Pinkamena Diane Pie, or that she was descended from Strawberry Pie, the pony whose books had had such an impact on Lyra—and not for the better, in Bon-Bon's opinion. Pinkie had been happy to introduce them to her father, Incitatus "Inky" Pie, and to her sisters, whose outlandish names Bon-Bon could never quite keep straight. And thank goodness for that: crashing a funeral was hardly the height of good manners. "Honestly," she grumbled, "I can't see why you think it was so important that we come here. It's not as though we know Pinkie that well..."

"Hush," hissed Lyra. "I told you, there must be something here ... Pinkie is too young to have known him, but her father must remember something."

"Admit it, Lyra, these 'humans' are nothing but fantasy. Strawberry Pie was a brilliant writer to have imagined them, but that's all there is to it."

"That doesn't explain what my great-great-grandmother wrote about them in her journal. She wasn't crazy. She knew Strawberry Pie when he came to Equestria ... from a different dimension, according to her..."

Bon-Bon rolled her eyes. The Pies coming from a different dimension certainly explained some of Pinkie's quirks, but it was still more than she could believe. Lyra had been crazy about the "humans" in Strawberry Pie's books for as long as Bon-Bon had known her ... and then, when Lyra's grandmother died, Lyra came into possession of her grandmother's grandmother's journal. And in the journal were several entries describing how she, Malachite Dream, had first encountered a pair of unusually tall ponies in the Whinnysconsin Woods, and what had followed. Lyra had been ecstatic to learn that it was her great-great-grandmother who had taught her favourite author how to hold a quill, and more so over the discovery that Strawberry Pie had in fact come from a place where "humans" existed.

It was a shame that Malachite Dream had to move to Canterlot only a few months later, when she became engaged to a Canterlot unicorn named Pinstripe. Even when that engagement was broken off-Malachite found Pinstripe rather too "controlling" for her tastes-the relationship between her and the two horses from the human world never quite recovered. It appeared that the last time she and Strawberry Pie met face-to-face was when she eventually married a musician named Heartsichord; there were no mentions of meetings or letters afterwards. Bon-Bon was honestly surprised when Inky Pie admitted to having heard of Lyra's ancestor, and when he welcomed both Lyra and Bon-Bon on the strength of that ancient relationship. But when asked about Strawberry Pie's origins, or about the truth behind Strawberry's "humans", Inky Pie only smiled enigmatically and changed the subject.

Lyra and Bon-Bon were not the only ponies from Ponyville to have accompanied Pinkie to the ancestral seat. Twilight Sparkle, and her assistant Spike, had also come for moral support. While Twilight sat quite respectfully in the row behind Pinkie, Spike had wandered off. Bon-Bon wished she could wander off too, but, while a baby dragon might not be missed, an adult pony almost certainly would be noticed, and Bon-Bon could only sigh and wait and hope that Lyra didn't embarrass herself any further.

Bored out of her skull, Bon-Bon was the only one to notice Spike's return to the funeral. The baby dragon had a rather satisfied expression on his face. Something glinted in his claw. Looking more closely, Bon-Bon barely suppressed a gasp when she saw the brilliant fire ruby he was holding. "Where did you get that?"

"This?" Spike grinned happily. "There was a whole cluster of fire rubies growing under the house porch. Would you believe it? What a feast! This one was the biggest and shiniest. It must have been growing there for at least a hundred years to have gotten this big, and I'm going to save it for my birthday."

"That sounds like a lovely birthday treat," said Bon-Bon. As long as Rarity doesn't catch sight of it first, she thought; that unicorn's fondness for pretty, shiny things almost rivalled a certain other unicorn's obsession with imaginary creatures.

* * *

><p><em>Haymarket, Equestria. Anno Caelestiae 906.<em>

Mister Smith stood at the refreshment table, ruminating over some exotic fruit. The party had settled down after Balderdash's abrupt departure. A few of Balderdash's friends, and there were surprisingly few of those, had gone after him, following a brief hesitation. They had not returned. At Cobblestone's encouragement, the remaining guests had returned to the business of enjoying themselves, though in a somewhat more sedate fashion.

"What are we going to do tomorrow, Mister Smith?" asked Strawberry, sidling up. "On the one hand—hoof—Balderdash is probably going to kill us if we show our faces anywhere near the farm. And on the other hoof, Cobblestone might not keep Balderdash on as foreman..."

Mister Smith deposited a mouthful of tangerine pips into a pocket, and said, "we'll worry about that when it's time to worry, Strawberry. Haymarket seems to have accepted us now; we can find work elsewhere if we have to."

"Yes, they have, haven't they?" Strawberry smiled and looked back over the crowd. The foals were repeating garbled versions of his stories to their friends and family. Angelflame caught his eye, and he waved to her; she smiled and waved back, all hint of her earlier apprehension gone. "I remember you used to say that you were collecting those seeds in case we needed to leave town very quickly, because Primrose had said something about work as a seed collector. You realise, now that we're not in danger of being expelled, you don't have to collect them any more, right?"

Mister Smith paused thoughtfully, then picked up a fig and held it balanced on one hoof. "I know. I figured that out earlier. But I guess I just like collecting seeds."

"I thought you might say that."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Strawberry grinned and waved a hoof at Mister Smith's hindquarters. Twisting around, Mister Smith caught sight of an image of a collection of seeds, the central one being a large acorn. The fig fell to the floor, not that he noticed. "Is that...?" A cutie mark: the lack thereof had been the last thing standing in between them and full assimilation into pony society. Its appearance was not only an indication of their particular destinies, but a sign that they were fully ponies of this new world—a sign that they truly belonged here.

"It is! Look, I've got mine too." Strawberry proudly displayed the image of a lute with a feathered cap hanging off its neck. "Angelflame says she thinks it means my special talent is in storytelling, and I think she's right. I mean, I rather realised, tonight, that repeating those stories I used to hear from Adam's students, and making up my own ... I don't really want to do anything else..."

"Strawberry, do you know what this means?"

"Yes, it means ... don't hit me!" Mister Smith had reared up, forelegs flailing, and Strawberry scrambled backwards in confusion. Losing his balance, Mister Smith fell flat on his face. There was a squelching sound as the forgotten fig was flattened beneath him.

"I wasn't about to hit you, you idiot," said Mister Smith, pulling himself upright again. "I ... well, I thought it was an occasion for a hug."

"Oh. Sorry about that. And you're right, that does seem appropriate." Strawberry stepped forward and gingerly placed one foreleg across Mister Smith's shoulders. Mister Smith responded in kind. "Congratulations, Mister Smith."

"Congratulations, Strawberry Pye. Welcome to the herd."

Who cared what Balderdash would do tomorrow? As a matter of fact they never saw him again, but even if they had, the simple fact of belonging was enough that very little else mattered.

* * *

><p><em>Ponyville, Equestria. Anno Caelestiae 1000.<em>

"Great-Grandpa didn't get his cutie mark until then?" cried Apple Bloom, horrified. "I'm doomed!"


	12. Epilogue

**A Horse Named Smith**

**Epilogue**

_Ponyville, Equestria. Anno Caelestiae 973._

Mister Smith yawned as he slowly slid out of his nap into the Spring sunshine. The days were beginning to blend together; he was getting old, he knew, and it was well past time for him to join his beloved Primrose in whatever afterlife awaited him now. He'd never been one to devote much brainpower to such thoughts—that was more Strawberry's line—but increasingly he was feeling a bittersweet sadness that tugged him towards the hereafter. And if he thought little about it, he talked about it less. He had brought his foals up to be practical workhorses: honest, honourable, and a little lacking in poetry. They would find such thoughts morbid and worrisome.

The years had been good to him, and he had no cause to complain. He and Primrose had had more than fifty wonderful years together; the hard times had never seemed quite so hard as long as they had each other, and the family that was growing up around them. Granny Smith was still here, of course: the farm would go to her, very soon now. Poor Songsmith, his first-born, had been quite put out when it became apparent that the family name was shifting to an apple theme—their third foal had been named Zap Apple in honour of the marvelous new crop they'd planted in their first year here—and had eventually married into the Orange family in Manehattan. But all the others, from Zap Apple down, had married and moved on to start up their own orchards all across the land. They, and their children, and their children's children, were scattered like dandelion seeds far and wide, planting orchards and feeding multitudes. It nearly took his breath away when he thought about it.

Everyone else was gone now: Primrose, Happy, Malachite, Strawberry ... sometimes he even wondered about Balderdash. The last time he'd seen Balderdash had been that night at Cobblestone's party: that party had been brought to a grinding halt not by the dramatic denouement of Balderdash's dastardly deeds, but by an explosion at Primrose's workshop an hour later. Mister Smith and Strawberry had joined in the bucket brigade, passing buckets of water down the line to put out the resulting fire. In the end, nothing of Primrose's remained, and only the furnace and chimney of Happy's smithy still stood where brother and sister had once lived. Primrose had been devastated by the loss: she'd been working on a secret project of some sort, using notes received from her old mentor in Manehattan—Songsmith, for whom their eldest colt would be named—and these notes were now no more than ashes in the wind. The theory was that Balderdash had started the fire as vengeance for his disgrace, and although Mister Smith reminded himself every so often that they had no proof, they had no Balderdash either to answer the accusations.

Lost in thought, Mister Smith was only gradually aware of the pony sitting next to him.

"Strawberry? Ah, either I've finally lost my mind, or else it's time to go." Mister Smith eased out of his rocker, and was not surprised to see that he'd left his body behind.

"You know, I was expecting a bit more of a surprised reaction. I had a whole speech prepared."

"I'm only surprised that it was you who came. I was expecting Primrose."

"Oh, Primrose is waiting, all right. We just thought it appropriate if you took your first step into this new life with me ... seeing as how we did the same thing, what, sixty years ago now?"

"Sixty-seven years," said Mister Smith, remembering that fateful day when Hector Conrad's machine had plucked them out of rural Barchester and dropped them into the Whinnysconsin Woods. "I've been counting."

"You and your fancy mathematics!"

They drifted out into the sunshine. Sweet Apple Acres was spread out before them. Granny Smith was bucking down the Golden Delicious, while Royal Gala sat nursing little Macintosh in the shade of a Ribston Pippin. Not a day went by without Mister Smith giving thanks for the good fortune that had led to his meeting, entirely by chance, with Princess Celestia, and the subsequent royal gift of these lands to his family. "You should see this place when the whole family is gathered," said Mister Smith wistfully. "Apples as far as the eye can see ... I sometimes wonder how I can keep 'em all straight, and yet you can't bring in an Apple without me knowing who they are and how they're descended."

Strawberry, who had insisted on following human naming conventions with regards to his own family, only smiled at that. "It's a wonderful thing, isn't it? Do you remember how desperate we were to blend in and belong? Now, it's not so much now that you belong to them ... it's that they belong to you."

"They belong to each other," Mister Smith said firmly. "And we'd better go where we actually belong now, before I decide to turn back."

Two ponies ambled into the sun, leaving no shadow, and faded into history.

* * *

><p><em>Los Angeles, USA. Anno Domini 2008.<em>

Balderdash snorted as he read the dossier of the newest applicant. He was having a hard time believing that this fellow would amount to anything in the League. How many times had he applied, now? And was he still working on perfecting his Evil Laugh? Really. "Tell our applicant," he growled, "that I am singularly unimpressed by his latest endeavours. At this point, the only way he can obtain membership is by actually killing someone..."

He had little patience for the bungling of these maggots. After all, he was a self-made horse. When he'd first appeared here, thirty years ago, he'd been the only talking horse on the planet, with no inkling of what to do or what to expect... He remembered the day of his arrival well enough. One moment he was bungling around Primrose's workshop, looking for some sort of blackmail material—if he couldn't have her the proper way, he'd have her the improper way—and the next moment one of her little inventions had exploded and landed him here. He thought at first that he'd died and gone to hell. But a healthy helping of low cunning and ruthlessness, combined with a quick abandonment of those pesky things called "scruples", had allowed him not only to survive, but to succeed. And now, here he was at the top of the heap: they called him the thoroughbred of sin. Nothing could...

The wall beside him exploded, scattering bits of brick and plaster across the room. The minion to whom he'd been dictating his last letter gave a frightened little squawk and went running. Balderdash made a mental note to have that minion properly chastised when he returned.

"By Jove! You're actually a horse, a real horse!"

The clipped, British accent was not what anyone might have expected coming from the muscle-bound warrior who'd just bounded in over the rubble. It took Balderdash a moment to place the face: Arthur the Barbarian ... mysterious origins (but all hero origins tended to be mysterious) in Barchester, England, probably in connection with Barset University. Half a world away ... but then there was obviously some sort of connection with the British scientist whom Balderdash was currently holding prisoner downstairs: Dr Mary Conrad, whose work in trans-dimensional physics had revived in Balderdash a brief hope of returning to Equestria, until he decided that he'd much rather stay here on Earth and wring some ransom money out of the British government.

Balderdash spun on his forehooves and lashed out with his hind legs. His hooves impacted solidly into the hero's chest, with the same force that had once been used to crush stone blocks down to gravel. Arthur went flying; he crashed through another wall, and the ceiling of the room beyond collapsed over his prone body. Almost immediately, he was back on his feet, bursting through the rubble and shaking off the dust. He showed no sign that he'd even been hit, but the look of determination on his face made Balderdash nervous.

Just play with the fellow a bit, thought Balderdash. Stall. Until you can make your escape. If you can use Dr Conrad as a get-out-of-jail-free card, do it.

Arthur the Barbarian sprang forward as Balderdash prepared to kick again...

**The End**


End file.
